Barnstaple

The North Devon & North Cornwall Samaritans Branch is based in Barnstaple and serves a considerable area from Camelford in North Cornwall to Lynton and Lynmouth in North Devon and as far south as South Molton and all the villages and towns in between.

The branch is entirely self-funded, we don’t have any paid staff and everyone gives their time as a volunteer. Our volunteers travel into the Branch for their shifts from all over our area (often difficult journeys in adverse weather conditions in the winter and negotiating holiday traffic in the summer) in order to support our callers throughout the day and night, as they work tirelessly to provide emotional support and a listening ear to people who need it.

In addition, they keep the branch running with many duties such as fundraising, recruitment, training, mentoring, admin, volunteer care, IT support, outreach, building maintenance and more recently our newly recruited marketing and social media team.

We are now fully settled in our refurbished branch after the building was significantly damaged during the torrential storms in August 2020. It was a mammoth effort to raise the necessary £145,000 to repair the damage and re-configure the branch and we continued to function throughout the fund-raising and refurbishment periods, thanks to our volunteers and Pearce builders who loaned us their meeting room during this period and gave us 24/7 access free of charge. We could not have done any of this without the unstinting support, hard work and resilience of all our volunteers.

We currently have 74 volunteers who enable us to offer support to callers and during 2025 we answered 18,756 calls and completed over 9,000 shift hours. Here in our lovely North Cornwall & North Devon we will always strive to provide that much needed emotional support and be there for our callers when they need us.

Sue Moyers - Branch Director

Volunteer with us

We really need more volunteers - can you spare some time to help us?

We are always looking for people to join our friendly volunteer team based in Barnstaple.

We urgently need more listening volunteers but your help could also be vital with admin, fundraising and supporting roles depending on people’s individual strengths and preferences. The link below explains in more detail what volunteering with Samaritans entails.

If you would like to take it further please follow the link below.

View our guide to volunteering at North Devon and North Cornwall Samaritans

Are you interested in becoming a friend of Barnstaple Samaritans?

We rely entirely on donations from the generous public, businesses and other organisations to sustain the running of our branch. It will cost over £70 a day (£26,000 a year) to keep us up and running or to look at it another way nearly £2 per contact that we deal with.

We are really keen to increase our dedicated group of supporters; ‘Friends of Barnstaple Samaritans’. As one of our “Friends,” you become a vital part of our team and your relatively small monthly donation will free our volunteers to spend more of their precious time supporting our callers.

For as little as £5 a month, we will be able to cover the cost of running our branch for a day each year so we would be delighted if you would join us as a friend by setting up a monthly donation of your choice, every penny of which will go straight to the running of our branch. Please set up a regular monthly contribution here.

As a Friend and with your consent, we would keep you updated annually with news of what has been happening in our branch and also invite you to our Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Alternatively, if you would like to fundraise with an event and donate the proceeds to our branch, visit our Enthuse page here.

You can of course email our local branch on [email protected] to discuss corporate sponsorship, financial support or a fundraising event.

Leaving a legacy to North Devon and North Cornwall Samaritans

Leaving a gift to North Devon and North Cornwall Samaritans in your Will could save a person’s life.

Hear why Samaritans volunteer Bob and his wife choose to include a gift to Samaritans in their Will.

The Guide to leaving a gift in your will to North Devon and North Cornwall Samaritans helps explain the steps you need to take. The specific wording for our branch is ”I give to North Devon and North Cornwall Samaritans, registered charity in England and Wales (1174414) of 2 Summerland Street, Barnstaple, EX32 8JJ.” Thank you for your continued support.

Partnership work within our local community

We have set up a referral service which you can use for your clients if you are a professional working in primary healthcare, the NHS Crisis Resolution Team, local authority support services, a Citizens Advisor, a counsellor with TalkWorks or any supporting voluntary sector. With your client’s permission, we can call them to offer a listening ear and emotional support at a time that suits them. The attached Working in partnership will explain how the support works in more detail.

Text to donate

Text NDNC to 70085 to donate £5

Texts cost £5 plus one standard rate message

Our lottery

Please support our branch funds by buying a North Devon community lottery ticket

Buy a lottery ticket

Follow us on Twitter

We would love you to follow us on our Twitter page @barnstaplesams

Our privacy statement

At Samaritans, privacy is at the heart of what we do. We are committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information that we hold. Read our privacy statement here.