New Hope's Teenline is designed exclusively for teenagers seeking help.  Adult users should use New Hope.  Violaters may be confronted, disconnected, or reported to authorities.

New Hope's chat room is designed for private communication between you and New Hope.  Of course, we cannot guarantee that an outside person or organization couldn't break in and obtain personal information on you.  For your benefit and for training purposes, New Hope supervisors do monitor the chat sessions between volunteers and visitors and may listen in and/or review conversations.

Teenline Counselors are teenage volunteers and New Hope Counselors are adult volunteers.  Volunteer counselors are trained in listening skills, caring, and crisis intervention by Rev. Dr. James Kok, psychologist Dr. Bill Gaultiere, staff members and consultants.  New Hope Counselors are volunteers, not licensed professional counselors, and they have not received formal counseling education so don't rely on them for advice.  The decisions you make during or after phone calls, chat sessions, conferences, e-mails, letters, and other communications with New Hope volunteers are your own and you need to take responsibility for them.  Any "advice" you feel you are given should be taken simply as one volunteer's opinion not as a directive for you to follow.  Any referral(s) you receive should be thoroughly screened and qualified by you to see that it is appropriate and helpful for you.  In all instances we encourage you to consult with a Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Licensed Therapist, Pastor, or other professional about your problems and concerns.

New Hope exists to help hurting people and to save lives.  Therefore, if you disclose that you intend to kill yourself or another, or that a child or an elder has been abused, then we are concerned for the one in danger.  In these difficult cases you are strongly encouraged to seek professional help.  Our New Hope volunteers will do their best to attempt to stop suicides and homicides and to get help for children and elders who are being abused.  This may include reporting pertinent identifying information to appropriate agencies that can intervene on behalf of the one in danger.

New Hope volunteers do their best to offer you a caring and helpful connection.  If you're not seeking help with a personal problem or expressing appreciation then we ask you not to contact us.  For you to receive help, you will also need to do your part:

Be honest about your true identity and concerns.

Ask for what you need from the conversation.

Follow up with the decisions that you make and the referral options that you believe are best for you.

New Hope's public forums like OneCommunity is made available for our visitors to support each other.  Please realize that these forums are not private and New does not screen participants and cannot guarantee that some participants won't be disruptive or harmful to you.  Therefore, it is up to you to use discretion in revealing any personal information about yourself.  Please remember to be respectful and encouraging to everyone you communicate with.  To attempt to keep our forums safe we will try to confront and/or terminate access for visitors who have engaged in inappropriate behavior or have been hurtful to others.

What happened.

Date and time of the problem.

User name and identifying information of the person you had a problem with.

Your user name and e-mail address.

New Hope Notes articles and New Hope Q & A answer articles are written by Dr. Bill Gaultiere, Director of New Hope and Clinical psychologist, and are intended as a source of information and encouragement for you.  Please do not use any of these articles as a substitute for formal, in-person diagnosis or treatment from a qualified medical or mental health professional.  In no case should you consider an article or e-mail response from Dr. Bill Gaultiere to represent the establishing of a client-therapist relationship.

New Hope Q & A articles and Q & A Teen to Teen are written for the benefit of all of our users.   Answer articles are general in nature (not written for any specific person or group of people) and are based on questions e-mailed to Dr. Bill Gaultiere, New Hope, or Teenline, which may have been modified by him or his staff.  Only those questions which have not been previously addressed (see New Hope Q & A Index, Q & A: Teen to Teen Index, and the New Hope Notes Index for previous articles) and are deemed to be applicable to other users will be considered for future answer articles.  If your question is chosen please allow two to six weeks for an answer article to be posted on our web site.

New Hope and Teenline will do their best to respond to your questions and prayer requests in a supportive fashion.  Our volunteer prayer team will pray for each of your designated prayer requests. As time permits our New Hope volunteers will respond to e-mails in an effort to offer caring support, but not advice. Any "advice" you feel you are given should be taken simply as one volunteer's opinion not as a directive for you to follow.  Communication with a New Hope volunteer is not a substitute for professional counseling.  We encourage you to consult with a Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Licensed Therapist, Pastor, or other professional about your problems and concerns.

New Hope offers a number of  referrals for you to consider as sources of additional information, support, or professional help.  New Hope makes no representations whatsoever about any other website, organization, or individual that you may contact through our websites, hotlines, or volunteers.  When you do make contacts with other websites, organizations, or individuals please understand that they are independent from New Hope and we do not endorse or accept any responsibility for the content, usage, or services that you receive.  Therefore, in such instances it is up to you to use discretion and caution to ensure that you receive the information, support, or professional help that you are looking for and that you protect yourself from personal or physical harm and computer viruses.