Emotional experiences of young volunteer counsellors providing suicide crisis counselling to youth in distress via social media: “I wonder what’s going to happen to them?”

With recognition of the potential to use social media to support youth experiencing suicidality and distress, it is important to understand the emotional impact of this on young counsellors working in this new terrain. Interviews were conducted with 15 volunteer counsellors working on an innovative social media-based crisis counselling service. Reflexive thematic analysis generated eight themes that captured the emotional challenges and protective emotional aspects of this form of counselling. The emotional challenges of the work included feeling overwhelmed by clients’ distress, identifying closely with clients, being unable to help, and confronting the limits of an online intervention. Protective aspects of working in this medium were seen as the ability to maintain professionalism, having the opportunity to reflect, experiencing satisfaction in helping, and finding personal enrichment. This research highlights the need to integrate appropriate support into the training and supervision of volunteers providing online crisis counselling.