Our mission is to listen to and support members of the community when they are troubled or lonely by providing a caring and non-judgemental telephone help line.

Listening Ear provides a telephone support service to offer social contact and support to alleviate callers’ loneliness and help them work through personal and family issues.

The service is run wholly by trained volunteers and has been operating for 40 years. The heart of the organisation is the team of 40 trained community volunteers, who are rostered to answer calls from 9 am to 9 pm, seven days a week, all year round. Each volunteer completes training over four weeks before taking any calls. The community volunteers meet fortnightly for support and ongoing professional development so that they are informed about issues such as mental illness, other support services, changing social issues in Australia, and challenges for specific age groups (children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly).

Personal isolation and loneliness pose a threat to physical and mental health.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that around one in three Australians suffers from loneliness. According to the Australian Red Cross, research shows that loneliness increases the risk of heart attack, cancer and depression and is as bad for health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being obese.

Listening Ear helpline was initiated in 1979 following a successful pilot program by a psychiatrist from Hornsby Hospital who saw the need for an informal support service for lonely people in the general community. It is special not only for its continued service to the NSW community for over 40 years but because it fills a gap that many other telephone call services do not cover in that it is a general helpline and operates longer than normal business hours.