Stafford Samaritans
| email us: jo@samaritans.org | call us: 01785243333 or 01889567878 (branch) | call us: 08457 909090 (UK) | Registered Charity: 231255 |
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Stafford Samaritans |
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Welcome to Stafford Samaritans Webpage
Who we are Who we are and what we do. Stafford Samaritans is a branch of the Samaritans which is an organization dedicated to befriending anybody with emotional distress. Our volunteers are trained to communicate with people who are feeling low and depressed particularly those who are suicidal. The organization was started by Chad Varah in 1953 when he became concerned that the suicide rate in London was then 3 per day. Contact with us is possible in various ways the most popular being a telephone call ( see the branch number and the national number above) but also by e-mail ( see the e-mail address above),visits to our centre during our daytime opening hours and very occasionally by letter. The Samaritan telephone line is available 24 hours per day and we usually respond to e-mails within 24 hours.Stafford Branch The Stafford branch is now receiving about 31,000 calls per year and is also concerned with outreach projects. One of these is our work in prisons where we train listeners ( these are prisoners) to act as Samaritans in prisons. In addition to training these volunteers we have regular support meetings with the listeners. Another outreach project is our work in schools where we participate in assemblies and in some cases with individual student support. Through our talks to organizations and our advertisements we try to project what we offer as widely as possible. Training To improve the service that we provide we need more volunteers prepared to give their time, on average more than 4 hours per week, and to undergo the necessary training. We run two training classes per year, usually starting in late spring or late autumn.The most usual pattern is one evening a week for about 5 weeks and a couple of Saturdays. The contact details for those wishing to volunteer are given below. Friends of the Samaritans We also need volunteers for the Friends of Stafford Samaritans which raise money to support the ongoing costs of the Samaritan centre and our telephone service. We are grateful to the support we have received from many organizations over the years.Administrative Contact Details Stafford Samaritans Garden Street,Stafford, ST17 4DDe-mail: staffordsams@btconnect.com ( Note this is not the e-mail for callers and although any call will be forwarded to the national e-mail system there may be delays; the e-mail address for any callers is given at the top of this website). |
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