ISWAN’s free, 24-hour helpline for seafarers and their families around the world has been accredited with the Helplines Standard for the next three years.

SeafarerHelp is a free, multilingual helpline service offering confidential help and support to seafarers and their families 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Seafarers and family members can contact the helpline via a number of channels including telephone, e-mail and Live Chat as well as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Developed over twenty years ago by Helplines Partnership in the UK, the Helplines Standard is a nationally recognised quality standard which defines and certifies best practice in helpline work.

Chester Quintal, Helpline Manager at ISWAN, said: ‘We are very pleased with this achievement but more importantly, we feel comfortable that our service users, seafarers and their families, will have reassurance that they are receiving a quality service when they contact us. But we will not stop here; our team will continue to work hard to further improve our helpline for the benefit of seafarers’ welfare.’

Contact details for SeafarerHelp, along with free information and resources for seafarers, can be found at www.seafarerhelp.org. SeafarerHelp is also available via the free ISWAN for Seafarers app, which can be downloaded via Google Play or the App Store.