About This Survey

Setting Up A Helpline for Women Affected by Self Injury and Self Harm

About this Survey

Bristol Crisis Service for Women has been funded to re-establish a national helpline for women who are affected by self injury and self harm.
Although we have run a service like this before we want to take some time to think about the best way to run this service and would really welcome your views.
We are especially interested in the views of women of any age who might use such a service, but we are also interested in the views of people who support women who use self harm or self injury.

We include in this definition ANYONE who identifies as a woman regardless of biology.
The survey is confidential and information you provide for will only be used to support the set up and running of the helpline and any personal details will not be shared with any other organisations.
We are very happy to send copies of this survey out by email or post, or to discuss your views in another way such as by instant messaging or on the phone if you would prefer. If you need more space to complete any of your answers please feel free to add in extra sheets of paper.

Our contact details are at the bottom of this page.
Please feel free to pass on this survey link to anyone you think might be interested.
Please keep yourself as safe as possible when filling in this survey and take breaks if you need to. If you would like to look for support in relation to self harm/self injury we have a list of resources - local and national - on our website:

If you have any questions or concerns please get in touch with:
Naomi Salisbury
Development Worker
0117 927 9600

Please return completed surveys to:

Bristol Crisis Service for Women
PO Box 654 Bristol BS99 1XH
Thank you very much for taking the time to give us your views.

Should we have a helpline at all?

This might seem like a strange question and we definitely intend to set up such a service if it is wanted, but some people have asked whether a helpline is something that is wanted and needed, so it would be useful to find out your views on this.

Do you think a helpline for women affected by self harm/self injury is a useful service to set up?
If so, why?
If not, why not and do you have any other ideas?

How should the helpline work?

These questions are intended to find out how you think the helpline should work. There are some restrictions on what we can offer due to funding and space but we have tried to make these clear throughout the survey.
Some of the answer options might seem a bit unusual or harsh but we have included them to try and gather a range of views and to be clear about things we shouldn't do.
We are also open to all suggestions you might have.

What should the helpline offer?

The helpline would be run by trained and supported volunteers. We have had some suggestions about the form the helpline should take.
Please tick all of the following things you think the helpline should offer.
There is also space at the end to add your own ideas.

Other Ideas:

When should the helpline be open?

At the moment we have a text and email service that is available Monday to Friday 7 - 9pm:

We will have to try and balance the best times to open the helpline with the times that volunteers can commit to and that try to fit around other support that is available.
Bearing this in mind when do you think the best times are to have the service available?
There is space to add any comments or other suggestions.

Other (please specify)

How long should calls last?

We will only be able to be open for limited hours each week and so we would like to know how long you think it is reasonable for each person to be able to speak to us during the opening hours.

Other – please specify

Should we use a freephone number?
We want to make sure there are as few barriers to using the helpline as possible and are looking into using a freephone number. However, using a freephone number means we would have to limit our opening hours to what we could pay for. We would like to know whether you think it is more important to be open more hours or to be as accessible as possible.
Which of the following telephone options do you think would be the most reasonable?
The most expensive for the service is at the top and the least expensive is at the bottom.
Other suggestions and ideas are also very welcome.

How do we make the helpline as accessible as possible?

We would like the helpline to be as accessible as possible to any woman who would like to use it.

Do you have any suggestions about how we could do this for example for women who don't speak English as their first language or have issues using the phone?
Any ideas are very welcome.

Letting People Know About the Helpline

We would like to know the best ways of letting people know about the helpline so that they can use it themselves or let other people know about it.

Where do you think we should put information about the helpline?
We have listed some suggestions below - please tick all the ones you think are a good idea and feel free to add any of your own.

Other – please specify

How important do you think each of the following pieces of information is on information we give out about the helpline?
Please add any other suggestions you have on the next page

Other (please specify)

What do you think the helpline should be called?
We are aware that the name of our organisation 'Bristol Crisis Service for Women' means that sometimes people think we only offer support to women in the Bristol area. This helpline will be national and we would like to hear any suggestions you have about what it should be called - or should we stick to our own name?

Future Development

We would like to keep running the helpline in the future and also think about other support that women who use self harm/self injury might want and how that could be provided. These questions are about some of the ideas we have had and to find out if you have any ideas.

At the moment we run a text and email support service, are setting up a helpline and also do training and awareness around self harm and self injury.
What else do you think we could look into in the future?
Please tick all of the suggestions you think are a good idea and feel free to add your own ideas as well.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Is there anything you think we definitely SHOULDN'T be doing?

This is a difficult question but in order to know if we are offering the right kind of support and then to get funding to keep offering support we have to collect information about what we do.

We don't want to be intrusive, so we are looking for ideas about HOW we should collect information about the helpline?
Please tick any suggestions you think are good ideas and add any other ideas you have about how we could collect information.
Please also comment on anything you think we SHOULDN'T do.

Do you have any other suggestions?

We would also like to know what information you think it would be useful to collect to show that the helpline is helpful to people who use it?
Please tick the suggestions you agree with and feel free to add other ideas or anything you think we definitely shouldn't ask about.

Do you have any other suggestions?

About You...

It's the inevitable point where we ask you a bit about yourself...
The reason we are asking this information is to try and find out in a very general way the kind of people who have answered this survey, why you might have responded and whether we have reached a range of people.
You don't have to answer anything you don't want to and we will not share this information with anyone else or link it to any contact information you leave.

We are asking this question so we can see if there are differences between the answers from people who might use the helpline for support around self harm/self injury and other people who have responded. It is very important to us that we set up a service that is useful and helpful, so it is useful to be able to divide up the responses in this way.
For the purposes of filling out this survey do you identify as:

Which local authority area do you live in?

Which age group are you in?

Do you identify as:

Do you identify as disabled?

Please add any comments here

Which ethnic background do you most identify with?

How would you define your sexuality?

Have you ever identified as transgender?

Please add any comments here

If you would like to leave contact details so you can be kept updated on the progress of the project please do so here this information will be separated from the rest of the survey and will not be shared with any other organisation.

Anything Else?

Just in case there's anything you want to say that we didn't ask about!

Is there anything you would like to say about the setting up and running of a helpline for women affected by self harm/self injury?

We have a resource list of self harm/self injury support services on our website. If you know of any services or groups that we could add to the list please let us know about them and leave any contact details you have for them here.

Thank You!

Thank you so much for taking the time to fill in this survey and give us your views.
If you would like to discuss anything further/contribute views in another way please contact:

Naomi Salisbury
Development Worker
0117 927 9600

Bristol Crisis Service for Women
PO Box 654 Bristol BS99 1XH

Bristol Crisis Service for Women

web: phone: 0117 927 9600 email:

fb: Bristol Crisis Service for Women tw: @BCSWBristol post: PO BOX 654 Bristol BS99 1XH