Abstract
PurposeVolunteers at child helplines play an important role in providing support for children, so keeping them satisfied during encounters is crucial to continue helping children. The purpose of this study is to understand how children’s perceptions of instrumental and emotional support (partner effects) influence volunteer encounter satisfaction, and whether this effect is moderated by a volunteer’s previous encounter experience and levels of interpersonal and service-offering adaptiveness.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consisted of 377 dyads of 116 volunteers and 377 children from online service encounters at a child helpline. Questionnaires were used to measure satisfaction, support and volunteer adaptiveness. A multilevel model was estimated to test the hypothesized moderation effects.FindingsThis study revealed that the instrumental support partner effect positively influenced volunteer encounter satisfaction. This relationship was stronger when the previous encounter was less satisfying or for volunteers with higher interpersonal, but not higher service-offering, adaptiveness. Negative effects on the relationship between the emotional support partner effect and volunteer encounter satisfaction were found after a less satisfying previous encounter or for volunteers with higher interpersonal adaptiveness.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the services and volunteerism literature by providing a unique perspective on the interpersonal influence between volunteers and children during service encounters. In the context of child helplines, this paper illustrates how volunteer encounter satisfaction is a function of the intricate interplay between children’s perceptions of the service encounter and volunteers’ perceptions of previous experiences and their adaptiveness.
Highlights
Child helplines offer support and information to children for a wide variety of issues such as abuse and violence, bullying, sexuality, family, homelessness, health and discrimination (Fukkink et al, 2016; Potter and Hepburn, 2003)
Previous encounter satisfaction H1 predicted that a positive influence from the partner effects of instrumental and emotional support on volunteer encounter satisfaction would be stronger when the volunteer’s previous encounter satisfaction was low
The results revealed significant interaction effects of volunteers’ previous encounter satisfaction on children’s evaluations of instrumental support (b = À0.10, p < 0.05) and emotional support (b = 0.09, p = 0.05)
Summary
Child helplines offer support and information to children for a wide variety of issues such as abuse and violence, bullying, sexuality, family, homelessness, health and discrimination (Fukkink et al, 2016; Potter and Hepburn, 2003). Child helplines fulfill the United Nations mandate that all children be heard. In 2017, child helplines in 146 countries received over 24 million contacts from children in need of care and protection (Child Helpline International, 2017), and these numbers are rising rapidly (Van Dolen and Weinberg, 2017). To help meet this growing demand, helplines have introduced online chat as another method of communication.
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