Supporting callers . . .
. . . 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Samaritans provides confidential support to anyone in emotional distress.
Our service is mostly delivered on the telephone but we also reply to e-mail messages and sometimes see callers face to face in the branch.
We recognise that it can be very difficult to talk, especially if you’re feeling really desperate. When you do try to share your feelings, people around you might not always listen anyway. Sometimes they can’t cope with what you’re saying, sometimes they just suggest you “pull yourself together” and sometimes they don’t seem to hear what you’re saying at all.
As Samaritans, we try to listen to you without judging you or offering advice. Our aim is to help you to explore your feelings and let you make your own decisions about your life. Many of our callers just need support to get through a bad time but for some life is so desperate that they choose to consider suicide. We respect that decision too.
When we have callers of particular concern, our Caller Care Team develops and agrees with the caller a Care Plan to enable our support to be consistent and appropriate. Then, following a period of crisis, we encourage callers to find ways of coping with their problems and become less dependent on our support.
Samaritans hope for a society in which fewer people take their own lives and believe that listening in confidence and without prejudice can reduce despair.