The Aselo team was thrilled to participate in the event. In addition to getting a rare chance to reconnect in-person with many of our existing helpline partners and learn from members of the helpline movement on their current successes and challenges, we also took an active part in the programming, helping organize two events:

• The Day 0 technology event, convening helplines to focus on shared technology needs and solutions.
• A plenary session on AI, moderated by Tech Matters founder Jim Fruchterman, which explored both opportunities and cautions in applying AI to helpline work.

Day 0: Building Technology for Child Helplines

After the success of our Day 0 event at the last International Consultation in Stockholm in 2022, Tech Matters hosted another Day 0 event prior to the main conference, devoted to helpline technology. More than 40 participants filled the room, ready to exchange ideas and experiences. This year’s focus was “Innovation to meet needs when resources are tight.” Funding cuts and growing demand have forced helplines to innovate, and Day 0 provided a chance to showcase what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next.

Three helplines shared concrete examples of how they are adapting technology to serve children better:

• Therese Garmestedt (BRIS, Sweden) presented on AI-powered content moderation for peer forums. By automating the flagging of inappropriate content, BRIS can ensure that young people have a safe space to connect online, even when staff resources are stretched. Importantly, no AI is in direct contact with children; humans always supervise.
• Pietro Compagnoni (Telefono Azzurro, Italy) described how a VoiceBot/ChatBot system now handles initial triaging for incoming calls. Before, counsellors were required to read terms and conditions aloud to every caller, a process that could take seven minutes before any real help began. With the chatbot in place, low-priority calls dropped from 80% to 20%. Children who need to speak to a counsellor are still connected, but counsellors no longer lose time on non-pertinent calls.
• Madeleine van der Bruggen (Offlimits, Netherlands) shared how her team built a data warehouse to integrate information from across their programs. This “early warning” system enables them to spot trends more quickly and to advocate effectively with policymakers and media.

Following the presentations, the group wrestled with questions that many helplines face:

• How to balance automation with the need for human oversight?
• Could youth panels help identify new slang or terms so that AI systems better reflect the realities of children’s lives?
• What models exist to train counsellors with AI, perhaps through simulated conversations or scenario-based learning?

The discussion also underscored how difficult it can be to scale tools across languages and cultural contexts. Participants noted both the promise and the challenge of building AI tools that work in multilingual environments without defaulting to English.

Key Takeaways

Day 0 reinforced that helplines are at the forefront of innovation, even under tight constraints. Peer-to-peer learning was evident in every discussion, with helplines borrowing ideas from one another. While challenges remain—particularly in scaling AI across contexts and harmonizing data—helplines are committed to making technology work for children rather than the other way around.

Session on AI: Optimistic and Cautionary Tales

The plenary session “Child Helplines, Increased Digitalisation & AI – Optimistic and Cautionary Tales” was moderated by Tech Matters’ founder Jim Fruchterman. Jim framed the conversation by noting that while AI offers helplines powerful tools to improve efficiency and reach, its use raises crucial questions of ethics, privacy, and the preservation of human connection.

Panelists included Tony Fitzgerald (yourtown, Australia), Hana Hrpka (Hrabri Telefon, Croatia), Sahil Rekhi (Graia), and Jeroo Billimoria (Child Helpline International).

Across the panel, a consensus emerged: AI can reduce counsellor burden, improve efficiency, and expand access. But AI must be carefully managed, transparent, and rooted in child protection values.

In Partnership with Child Helplines

The Zambia consultation highlighted three intertwined themes: helplines must continue innovating with technology, carefully explore AI’s promise while guarding against its risks, and invest in data systems that elevate their voice on the national and global stage.
For Aselo, these themes are core to our mission. We are committed to supporting helplines with tools that are affordable, adaptable, and built for the realities of their work. Whether through shared technology exploration on Day 0, thoughtful engagement with AI, or strengthening data for advocacy, we see each step as part of a collective effort to ensure children everywhere can find help when they need it most.

It was a great pleasure to return to Indiana (where I went to college) for Aselo’s third visit to the CrisisCon conference. CrisisCon is the annual event in the United States that focuses on the crisis continuum – the chain of services often described as “Someone to Contact” (helplines and hotlines), “Someone to Respond” (mobile crisis teams), and “A Safe Place for Help” (crisis care and stabilization centers). In Aselo’s origins in the international child helpline space, the first of those was really the only one on our radar. As we have increased our presence in the U.S.-specific context, for example in our unarmed crisis response partnership with the City of Los Angeles and Trek Medics, we’ve become more familiar with this continuum.

 CrisisCon was an opportunity to see familiar faces and create new connections. This was the first visit where we could speak about an existing U.S. customer base, which is quite a milestone! We see tremendous opportunity to continue to grow and support this field, collaborating with multiple organizations across the continuum.

I’ve found it interesting over the years in our work with the international child helpline movement that even though mental health is the most common issue that children bring to helplines, most of the conferences, meetings, and collaborations that we participate in are focused on violence against children (which is still a critical issue, and a strong second in commonality!). Therefore I looked forward to attending the eMHIC Congress – our first global conference focused on mental health technology – in order to go beyond the helpline space to capture a broader view of how technology is being used across the entire global mental health care ecosystem. This conference, sponsored in part by our partner Kids Help Phone, brought together representatives from government mental health departments, technology regulators, nonprofits, mental health app developers, researchers, and many others.

It was so interesting to see how many different countries are seeing similar challenges and working toward similar solutions. I had the opportunity to present our work on Aselo and how we co-created a successful technology solution alongside the global child helpline movement, and it was so exciting to speak to how we solved the challenges that I was seeing. In the talk, I focused on four principles that guide our work:

• Co-creation (with our partner helplines)
• One global product with local adaptation
• Shared, open contributions
• Data empowerment (we don’t own the data, though standards-based, deidentified data sharing can help the whole community!)

These principles aligned well with what I heard from many voices at the event. We all come from very diverse backgrounds, but there are many similarities to the challenges we face. Rather than operating in silos, finding shared models and practices that value local differences can help us all confront these challenges.

The High-level Roundtable on Financing Safe Digital Futures for Children, held during the G20 Social Summit in Johannesburg, brought together over 70 participants from governments across Africa and Latin America, alongside regional bodies, international agencies, the private sector, NGOs, academia, media, survivors, youth, and children.

Representatives from 35 institutions discussed the urgent need to embed digital safety as a core pillar of digital transformation in order to build inclusive and sustainable digital economies. A clear message emerged – child online safety remains under-prioritised in current global investment flows, despite rapidly growing digital harms. Reflecting on current and future planned projects across the organisations present, all speakers emphasised the importance of governmental leadership, cross-sector collaboration, survivor and youth engagement, and innovative, blended financing approaches.

As the Aselo representative in Dialogue II of the session: Financing and Integrating Cost-Effective Solutions, I highlighted the fact that Tech Matters was one of the only technology organisations present at a conversation related to the digital world. This opportunity allowed me to stress the need to move beyond framing technology as the problem, instead advancing “safety by design” through collaboration with technologically skilled organisations, and – most importantly – leveraging networks like Aselo, other global existing policies and best practices to accelerate the pace of efforts to keep up with the exponential growth of digital spaces and associated harms.

The Third Richest Nation initiative by the Brave Movement was highlighted as a compelling, data-driven tool for engaging funders. The session concluded with renewed momentum for the Safe Digital Futures – Invest in Children Coalition, which Aselo is part of and an Open Letter calling on G20 nations to invest urgently in child online safety drafted, with partners set to reconvene in early 2026.