What is your background/back story?
All Samaritans are volunteers, and I work full time as well. The demographic for volunteers is still skewed towards the older generation, but there are some younger people involved as well. I trained in 2017 and it was quite intensive. Then I became the branch Training Director, and my role was to train the new volunteers. We’re all volunteers, none of us are paid. I became Teesside Director in December 2022 and will be director until December this year. I also work at Teesside University, and I am passionate about the mental health benefits of physical activity. One of the reasons why I became a Samaritan was for upskilling for myself and helping students as I wanted to help students and friends and gain better skill set. I kind of stumbled across Samaritans when I was searching for ways I could upskill my knowledge on how to help people with their mental health. Samaritans appeared in my Google search, I found out more about the service and the training and I was keen to learn. Samaritans is a well-structured organisation and have really good training. I enjoy what I do and have learned a lot.
How long have you worked for the Samaritans?
Since 2017
What do Samaritans do?
The image is that everybody who calls is suicidal, but a lot of our calls are simply people who need someone who will listen to them. We don’t judge or tell people what to do, rather we empower them and signpost them to where they may get help. We are trained to listen and show empathy and provide human contact for people in need.
Our helpline is available 24 hours per day and people often call during unsociable hours. Those who call us are not always actively suicidal, but having a place to talk will help people and prevent suicides. The main methods to contact Samaritans is via our free telephone line and email address. People call or email and we also get emails across the world from people internationally emailing us online. Nationally, there is also a chat function. We don’t have one on Teesside yet.
Samaritans train prisoners to provide emotional support to their peers, by becoming ‘Listeners’. Listeners are prisoners who provide confidential emotional support to their peers who are struggling to cope or feeling suicidal. They are specially selected and trained for the role by our volunteers. Teesside Branch works with Holme House Prison Kirklevington Grange Prison. We also work in schools doing prevention work nationally. Nationally, we have a festival branch who work at large festivals offering emotional support. We have a relationship with National Rail and we have the Small Talk Saves Lives campaign that runs every March.
Every branch has its own budget and does its own outreach. Some of the outreach work we have done at Teesside include, sponsoring two football clubs, signage on a main roundabout in Stockton, Teesside. We were also able to fund, with support from Public Health South Tees advertisement on the back of car park tickets across the councils in Teesside. We also sponsor Radio Stitch which is the hospital radio for North Tees and Hartlepool.
Can you tell me about successes?
Here is a link which show some of the successes that we have had nationally.
Also good examples of successes are some small moments we’ve had. In Sarah Millican shows, we have bucket collections, and some people will come up and tell us or make an effort to say thank you and I wonder if they have used the service. There is a ripple effect of what we do. It’s hard to capture exactly our success, as we don’t share our conversations due to strict confidentiality, but we get some phone calls to say thank you. It is still quite difficult to define what our successes are
Can you tell me about your plans for the future?
Nationally, the organisation exploring ways to ‘future proof’ our service by exploring different funding streams, exploring ways to increase volunteers and different ways of working. We are involved in forward thinking and making sure that we are current and can still deliver our services.
What other initiatives are you involved in? Which other organisations do you work with?
We do a lot of work with National Rail and we collaborate with them at national level. Different branches have different collaborations with public health groups and groups such as Mind and such like. Locally in our branch we have a space we let out to local charities that support women who have been through domestic violence.
Why is the work of the Samaritans important?
We are helping to reduce the risk of suicide in collaboration with other organisations. Our callers often have other professional support, but we are here to listen and help guide them on that journey in a different way as opposed to formal professional services. Until you are taking a phone call, you can’t quite appreciate that having someone to talk to can make a huge difference for people. We don’t judge or tell people what to do but we are human and we actively listen. We are also open 24 hours a day, every day of the year so people know there is always someone who will listen should they be going through a distressing time. We are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We don’t see ourselves as the organisation for emotional support, rather are part of a range of organisations trying to give emotional support to people to prevent suicide.
What would be your vision of a better future for people in the North East and the country as a whole?
My vision would be people being happy and healthier, whatever their circumstances are. I would like to see people happy and confident and resilient to cope with the challenges we can all face in life. I think it would be brilliant if there was more awareness and training in schools, workplaces etc on active listening and adopting some of the skills we use as Samaritans. The Small Talk Saves Lives campaign tries to address this. This campaign has encouraged people to start a simple conversation if they think someone isn’t OK at railway stations or other public places, if they feel safe to do so.
If you think you need support from the Samaritans please see here.
If you are interested in volunteering for the Samaritans please see here.
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