Samaritans
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Facts and figures

Numbers of contacts to Samaritans

In 2008 Samaritans received almost 5,159,698 contacts by phone, email, letter, mincom, face-to-face at a branch, through our work in prisons, and at local and national festivals and other events.

47% of these contacts (mostly by phone) were silent contacts where the caller did not speak or ends the call very quickly.

Samaritans received 11,787 more contacts from men than from women in 2008.

Means of contacting Samaritans

  • 89% of calls were made by phone – this was the most common method of contact.
  • 160,351 contacts by email.
  • 30,131 face-to-face contacts in branches.
  • 16,138 face-to-face contacts at festivals, prisons, and other settings

Information Resource Pack

Samaritans information taken from the Information Resource Pack 2009.

Suicide statistics 1999-2008

This leaflet includes statistics on trends in suicide in each of the nations within the UK and
Republic of Ireland.

Download Samaritans Suicide Statistics 1999-2008

Samaritans volunteers

There were a total of 18,179 volunteers in 2008 including:

  • 14,905 active volunteers
  • 1,863 temporarily inactive volunteers
  • 1,409 support and shop volunteers

 

  • 68% of active volunteers are women.
  • Almost 3,664 people were newly recruited and trained as Samaritans volunteers in 2008.
  • 2,905 volunteers resigned last year.

Dialogue Contacts against Number of Active Volunteers 1984 to 2008

Dialogue contacts against number of Samaritans volunteers 1992 - 2008
See larger image

 

Suicidal contacts

  • In 19% of telephone contacts to Samaritans, the caller expressed suicidal feelings at the time of the call.
  • In 36% of email contacts to Samaritans, the caller expressed suicidal feelings at that time.

Samaritans dialogue contacts in 2008

Samaritans dialogue contacts in 2008
See larger image

 

More statistics about Samaritans

Suicide data for 2009