E-mail listening

Bristol Nightline is pleased to be able to offer an e-mail listening (e-listening) service.

You can e-mail us instead of giving us a call, but still receive a very similar service to that offered to our telephone callers.  We appreciate that you won't always feel comfortable talking to someone on the phone, and that sometimes it's easier to say what you mean if you have time to put it down in words.  Our aim is that by offering students the option to e-mail us, we can reach out and help more people than ever before.  To use this service, all you need to do is send an e-mail to the address given on our Contact page. You can do this at any time of day.

We always aim to reply within 48 hours. This might seem like quite a long time, but we want to ensure we can keep promises we make to you.

Key information
  • Feel free to e-mail us, no matter what the question or problem
  • The address is on our "Contact Nightline" page.
  • You will receive an automated reply from our address, to confirm receipt and to ensure messages are not sent in error
  • We always aim to reply within 48 hours (during term time only)
  • We cannot guarantee which volunteer will respond. Responses will simply be signed "Nightline".
  • The same confidentialty and anonymity policies as our telephone service apply equally to e-listening

Privacy and security

We acknowledge that e-mail is not a terribly secure system, but we have worked closely with Information Services to ensure the security of the Nightline e-mail account, and how best to offer this service. There are, however, several points we feel you should be aware of:

  • Authenticity: the "from:" address in an e-mail can easily be set to anything. This means people can send us e-mails supposedly from someone else, or someone could send e-mails supposedly from Nightline. When an e-mail is sent to our address, an automated reply is generated. If you receive this, but haven't e-mailed us, you should let us know. Likewise if you receive an e-mail claiming to be from Nightline, but you're not sure of its authenticity, please do give us a call to verify it.
  • Interception:  e-mails can be intercepted as they travel across the internet. They are not encrypted, so are readable by anyone sufficient technical knowledge. This form of interception is probably illegal. There are times that the University may look at an individual's usage of computers, see: the  University Policy for  the investigation of computers
  • Anonymity: in the same way as our telephone callers, we have no interest in finding out who e-mails us. If you e-mail us from your university e-mail account, it will identify you, but this information would still be totally confidential within Bristol Nightline. If you are concerned about this you can create a free web-based e-mail address such as a Hotmail or Yahoo! account.

We do keep a record of all emails for thirty days after we have received them. This is because, should you choose to e-mail again, the same person may not be replying, and we wouldn't wish to repeat the same questions, or lines of discussion. After thirty days e-mails are deleted.

If you have any further questions about our e-mail services, please feel free to contact us.