LIFELINE Hunter will this weekend hold its first fundraising event since the pandemic, which will support it to respond to an increased number of calls for help.
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Regional general manager Julie Wicks said the two-day book fair being held at the Newcastle Showground Exhibition Centre on Saturday and Sunday was a COVID-safe event that would include 20,000 books arranged in 60 categories, a children's book area, clothes for sale and a coffee van.
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She said it aimed to raise funds for - and awareness of - its free services.
This includes its 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services, as well as the weekday telehealth service it introduced in the past year that connects callers to six free counselling sessions without a doctor's referral.
"We do have available appointments, whereas we know a lot of private practices have quite long waiting lists," she said.
"We can normally fit someone in within a few days, not weeks on end waiting. We've had floods, fires, COVID, floods again, it's been a really rough 12 months."
Ms Wicks said the number of calls increased by 25 per cent from about 2700 to 3300 a day across the country at the height of the lockdown.
Some people experienced anxiety for the first time.
She said Lifeline was still receiving more than 3000 calls a day and expected this to become the new normal.
She said some callers had financial pressure coinciding with the end of JobKeeper and there was still a lot of uncertainty.
"Adapting to change is really hard generally, but change you haven't prepared for and that came so quickly, people are still dealing with how that affected them."
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