What is Nightline?
Nightline is a student-run, confidential, anonymous listening and information service at the University of St Andrews. Our dedicated volunteers have been providing this service for over forty years. Our aim is to provide a safe space for students to speak about whatever might be on their minds in a non-directive, judgment-free environment.
St Andrews Nightline is affiliated with Nightline Association, and our service has consistently shown to be of high standards.
What can I contact Nightline about?
Nightline is a listening and information service.
You can contact us if you’re feeling anxious, depressed, lonely, homesick, happy, bored, have relationship troubles, and more.
You can also contact us for information, like taxi numbers, doctors numbers, exam venue information and more!
How can I contact Nightline?
You can contact us via Instant Messaging between 8pm–midnight. Our phone lines are open from 8 pm-7 am on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. During the rest of the week, phone lines are available from 8 pm-12 am. Nightline remains closed over University holidays, to see when we re-open after a holiday period check out our socials!
Calls to our phone line cost your standard network rate. Calls to our Skype account are free and can be made from anywhere in the world.
You can email us at any time, including over Breaks. Your email address will be anonymised, and a volunteer will respond to you within 24 to 48 hours. During breaks from term, this wait time is extended to 72 hours.
Phone: 01334 46 2266
Instant Messaging
Skype calling: StAndrewsNightline
E-Mail: [email protected]
Who will I be talking to?
Nightline is staffed by two trained listening volunteers every night we are open, and all volunteers are students at the University of St Andrews. Our listening volunteers undertake a rigorous period of training as well as continuous training to ensure that they can provide the best service possible. We aim to have volunteers of different gender identities on shift each night so that at any time during the call you can ask to be passed on to the other volunteer if that would make you more comfortable. All of our training practices are in accordance with Nightline Association’s Good Practice Guidelines.
What can I contact Nightline about?
You can talk to Nightline about anything that’s on your mind; we are here to listen to you no matter what.
We operate on our 5 core principles of anonymity, confidentiality, empathy, non-judgment, and non-directivity. This means whenever you contact Nightline you will be listened to with empathy, and the volunteer you speak to will never make judgments about your situation, nor will they ever try to influence you or tell you what to do. We are here to help you explore your feelings and your options if you want to, but we will never advocate for a certain course of action. If you are looking for advice, but don’t know who to contact, we can give you information about services that can provide directive advice.
We are also an information service, meaning our volunteers are equipped to help you find the information you might be looking for, be that information about exam timetables, study spaces, taxi numbers, student events and societies, or anything at all.
Will things I talk about be kept private?
Nightline will always treat the information students choose to share with the utmost confidentiality. Details of contacts will not be passed on to the University, and students can be assured that we will uphold our confidentiality policy.
Our email service is entirely anonymised; when you send an email to [email protected], your personal details will be automatically anonymised before your email reaches our volunteers.
If you try to message us through Skype, your Skype username will be recorded in our Skype call log which is only visible to the Director and is cleared regularly (please only audio call us through Skype; we do not check or respond to voicemails or messages on our Skype account).
Additionally, there are certain cases under which we are legally obligated to disclose information, namely direct threats of harm to others or information regarding threats of terrorism, however, those are exceptions to our rule of complete confidentiality.
What can I do when Nightline is closed or unavailable?
We have two volunteers operating the service each night, so sometimes when you try to call or instant message Nightline, the volunteers are busy with another call. If you can’t get through to a volunteer, or if you need to talk outside of our opening hours (8pm to 7am), you are very welcome to try again later, send us an email, or contact another helpline.
For immediate support, the Samaritans helpline is available 24 hours a day for anyone who experiences feelings of distress or despair on 08457 90 90 90 or at [email protected].
For St Andrews-specific help, the ASC (Advice and Support Centre) is located at 79 North Street and can be reached at [email protected] or 01334 46 2020 for any student-related issue. You can also contact Student Services and find out more about how they can help through their online booking system.
Mental health and wellbeing resources for BAME individuals.
Mental health and wellbeing resources for the LGBTQIA+ community.