Evolving our structure and how you can volunteer with us in the future
Today we have 200 branches across the UK and Ireland with thousands of dedicated and passionate volunteers. A branch provides a safe and supported environment for volunteers to answer calls from anywhere in the UK or Ireland. They also play an active role in suicide prevention in their community.
However, in order to make our national listening services the best they can be we need to adapt.
Today’s branches are built on a past where every branch had its own phone number. When you phoned your local Samaritans branch telephone number you knew you were talking to someone at that local branch. This changed over ten years ago when we moved to a single phone number and a system where a caller is connected with the first available volunteer.
In the future we envisage that Samaritans will have fewer branches and be even more able to answer calls, quickly. It is likely that in 10 years' time Samaritans could have around half the number of branches, although some of these will be larger, will be accessible and will offer a broader set of volunteering opportunities.
How we will change our branch structure
This change is understandably difficult for many volunteers, who continue to give an incredible amount of time and commitment to helping people.
We originally shared with our volunteers and staff that we needed to reduce the number of branches over time and move to fewer, larger branches to overcome the challenges we face in remaining fit for the future. Based on initial modelling we felt this would result in an eventual reduction of branch numbers by half over the coming 7 to 10 years. We said this would be achieved through scaling up of some branches, mergers and clusters of some, relocation of others and regrettably the closure of some.
We have spent a few months talking to volunteers and our volunteer leaders. Based on their feedback, we have agreed that we continue with this aim, but that we will co-create this with our volunteer leaders. So that our volunteers can inform and shape the direction.
We will initially approach this work in three geographical areas in the UK, working collaboratively with volunteer leaders in Scotland, South East of England and Yorkshire and Humberside. By working together with our volunteer leaders in these areas we hope we will find ways to solve the challenges we face. We aim to have this work complete by the end of 2028, at which point we will consider the learnings before proceeding with further areas.
Volunteering for the future
Listening volunteers provide the human connection that makes the Samaritans service unique.
Callers have told us that knowing someone is there because they want to be makes a huge difference.
Volunteering with Samaritans is a personal commitment and we need to make sure that we continue to attract and keep volunteers for years to come. With today’s busy lives, we need to provide more flexible ways of volunteering. Some of these ways will be explored as part of the future branch work but we will also pilot remote volunteering.
We have heard from thousands of volunteers that for many of them, remote volunteering is not an option. But for some, it would provide more flexibility, and could particularly help to increase the number of volunteers available in the middle of the night, when we know people are too often having to wait too long to speak to someone.
We will run a pilot with around 120 volunteers in early 2026. This pilot will be limited to night-time shifts. Remote volunteering will only be rolled out fully if the pilot is deemed to be safe for our callers and our volunteers and will be entirely optional for volunteers.