Yes, we have seen really significant increases in the volume of young people coming to us, and also in the ways they are coming. We continue to see very high volumes on our phone line, but we are the only 24-7 texting service in Canada, so we have also continued to see very high volumes in young people texting us.
Just as before the pandemic, our busiest times are when everything else is closed, so into the overnight hours we are very busy with young people who are reaching out. They are often reaching out with more serious and significant issues, particularly suicide. If you imagine a young girl where everyone in the family is asleep and they can't sleep, that is the moment they pick up whatever device they have and reach out to us.
Certainly at the beginning of the pandemic we saw large increases in young people reaching out about abuse and neglect. Again, everything was closed. The places that are often reporting abuse and neglect, like schools, were not able to do that, so young people were coming directly to Kids Help Phone.
Over the course of the pandemic, body issues—as was brought up earlier—and eating disorders came up in really high numbers, as did isolation and anxiety. Young people were increasingly talking to us about the challenges of missing out—missing out on graduation, on sports, on all of those things that they were used to, or they had been looking forward to.
As we have continued through COVID and things feel like they may be getting back to a little more normal—young people are often back in school now, face-to-face—we continue to see high levels of anxiety as young people are trying to figure out what the new normal is. Can you go to school with your mask or not? Are you able to hang out with your friends? When do you stay home?
Like many of us, young people are still navigating this new world. It's not back to normal. It is a new normal, and we don't know exactly what that is yet. As we, as adults, are anxious about that, certainly the young girls and young women in our lives are as well.
We continue to see a new normal in terms of volume, but in terms of the issues, there are some new things, again, around missing out and anxiety, but a lot of the challenges are the same as we saw prepandemic in terms of suicide, depression, anxiety and relationship issues.