‘You don’t have to say very much — you just listen’

SOMETIMES the smallest of voices can reveal the deepest of sorrows.

Gabrielle Geraghty was a childcare worker and then raised four children of her own but even she has been taken aback by some of the calls to the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Children (ISPCC) since she began volunteering with the Childline service last summer.

“In my work previously I dealt with issues like alcoholism and sex abuse so I had an idea what to expect but it’s not until you hear the children’s voices and listen to their stories that you realise the extent of what’s out there.”