Email training . . .
. . . the Samaritans receive more than 130,000 contacts by email a year – a growth of some 24% between 2004 and 2005.
Samaritans are widely associated with the telephone but email is an
increasingly important part of our service. After starting in a very small
way in 1992 in one branch, the need to respond to distressed people by email
became so great that more and more branches were taking part and in December
2002 the email service was launched nationally. By the end of 2006
Samaritans were receiving around 500 messages each day and this number is
still growing. Response times vary but the average time for a reply is
around 10 hours.
Answering these email messages is part of our work at Stockport branch 
and
some of the initial training is devoted to helping new volunteers become
familiar with responding through the written word.
If you are in distress you can contact Samaritans by email: jo@samaritans.org