What we do

The statistics are hard to hear, but the World Health Organisation has predicted that by 2020, depression will be the second biggest health problem worldwide, behind heart disease.

Unfortunately, depression is a growing crisis that is currently affecting or will affect our family, our friends and our colleagues. And it doesn’t discriminate. It affects the young, the old, the poor, the wealthy, the lonely and the famous.

Lifeline Brisbane’s 24 Hour Crisis Counselling Line and free face-to-face counselling are vital services for our local community. Its trained telephone counsellors are available 24/7 for those experiencing depression.

How we began

Rev Dr Sir Alan Walker started the Lifeline counselling service in Sydney, in 1963, after receiving a telephone call from a distressed local. Three days later, the man tragically took his own life. Determined not to let loneliness, isolation or anxiety be the cause of another death, Sir Alan launched a Sydney based telephone-counselling service. Within its first day of operation, the centre received over one hundred calls for help.

Lifeline Brisbane is one of 41 Lifeline centres throughout Australia, accredited by Lifeline Australia, each one offering 24-hour Crisis Counselling Line. Thanks to overwhelming community support, Lifeline has been operating in Brisbane for 42 years.

Available 24 hours a day, Lifeline Brisbane’s trained telephone counselling volunteers deal with a vast array of issues including: loneliness, anxiety and depression; coping with loss or change; traumatic experiences; dealing with violence, abuse and addictive behaviour; plus mental health and suicide issues.

Our services

Lifeline Brisbane also offers free face-to-face counselling and runs a number of support programs for children and families.

Although Lifeline Brisbane is well-known for its second-hand shops and popular Lifeline Bookfest, its primary service is providing counselling support to those in need in the community of Brisbane.

To continue these services, Lifeline relies on the community’s generous donations of goods, of time and of money. Unfortunately – and yet understandably - Lifeline desperately needs to secure funding to meet its counselling service demands.

Please donate to Lifeline Brisbane today. Call 3250 1934.

Quotes from callers

“Without Lifeline…….I would not be here today.”

“I’m ringing back to say I am alive.”

“Thank you for listening and being so patient with me.”

“It takes special people to devote their time to saving those of us who sometimes walk a little too close to the edge.”

“To this day I don’t know why I picked up the phone ... I’m very glad I did.”

“I’ll never know who she was, but I have said a quiet thank you to her many times over the years.”

“He stayed on the phone with me for three hours … I went from utterly devastated to finding a speck of hope.”

In crisis?

If you're in crisis, call 13 11 14.

*Lifeline Brisbane: Raising awareness of the illness of depression in the community*