Nightline (student service)

Nightline is the name given to various confidential and anonymous overnight listening, emotional support, information, and supplies services, run by students for students at universities around the world. Individual Nightlines are autonomous organisations, but are affiliated to the Nightline Association, which is an umbrella organisation founded to facilitate cooperation between Nightlines in the UK and Ireland.

There are now Nightlines services in over 40 universities with around 2000 student volunteers in the UK, all which are affiliated with the Nightline Association. In later years, other universities in Europe, Canada and the United States also started Nightline services.

Their current motto is 'We'll listen, not lecture'

The first Nightline was set up in 1970 at Essex University by a former director of the local Samaritans branch and the university chaplain to try to reduce the rate of student suicide. The helpline was founded on the understanding that some students would be reluctant to approach outsiders for help and would find it easier to speak to another student. The idea caught on and spread first to Imperial College in London in 1971, and then to many other universities around the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s, individual Nightlines started to work together to share skills and ideas, such as publicity, recruitment and training concepts. The umbrella organization National Nightline was founded in 1991 as a formal structure for this work, and represents all affiliated organizations, but has no authority over them. It became a registered charity in early 2006. It subsequently adopted the operating name of Nightline Association, and in 2012 changed the name at Companies House to formally become the Nightline Association.

The Nightline Association hosts an annual conference of member Nightlines every year. Conferences form a primary method of communication within the Nightline Association, as a means of disseminating vital information and ideas - examples include Lancaster Nightline's conference on training issues (2006), the Oxford Nightline conferences on abusive callers (2005, 2006, 2007) and the Durham Nightline conference on changes to the suicide policy (2016).

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