Inner South West London Samaritans Impact Report 2021

It's hard to think of a year for our branch like 2021. It began for many as probably the toughest of the pandemic lockdowns. With disrupted Christmas plans still fresh in mind, we locked down again on 6 January 2021, and the virus-related restrictions continued for six more months.

Thanks to a collective effort from all our volunteers, our branch stayed open for callers throughout the lockdown. We even extended our opening hours to include new shifts at the hours most crucial to our callers.

We help people explore their options so they can make decisions that are right for them. In 2021 Inner South West London Samaritans answered a total of:

• Inbound calls: 16083
• Outbound calls 207
• Emails 4583
• Webchat 499

Night-time call levels increased by around 12% after the introduction of social distancing restrictions, and there was a 23% rise in responses to email over the same period (percentage increase in email are national stats). There was also a significant increase in calls from prisoners. Getting a response from a real person and being given the time and space to talk things through helps people to find a way through their problems.

In a year when outreach in its usual forms has not been allowed, our Education and Outreach Teams have still managed to stay busy finding new ways of reaching out.

Our Education team have given online presentations to the Wandsworth Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service partnership, the Wandsworth safeguarding team and the Wandsworth Heads' Forum. We have carried out online workshops for the Wandsworth

Young Commissioners and presented to schools on How to Talk About Suicide.

As a result of several mail shots to schools, we now have a series of Emotional Health workshops set up and have also had requests for workshops. 

Our Outreach team recommenced face-to-face towards the end of July. Before this, our volunteers presented awareness and Listening Skills workshops via Zoom to volunteers of Home-Start Wandsworth.

New Samaritans and the training and mentoring are vital to the functioning of our branch. The mentoring team had to think creatively in 2021. Owing to the pandemic, training moved online. The training team adapted to delivering via Zoom and carrying out skills practice by phone or break out room.

The training and mentoring teams kept up with changes to materials and policy relating to email, text, online chat and safeguarding.

Despite online learning, training groups have remained engaged and have been able to build social ties through WhatsApp groups and, covid permitting, social meet-ups.

• In 2021, 26 volunteers completed Core and Embedding training.
• Each volunteer attends 18 hours of Core and 12 hours of Embedding, in addition to at least 5 hours of digital modules and feedback and coaching from experienced Samaritans.
• Three groups were trained last year, meaning that the team delivered over 100 hours of training in 2021.
• Each volunteer has at least eight mentored shifts, across 26 volunteers, that’s at least 624 hours of mentoring in ISWL.

Our branch is likely to continue to grow gradually over the coming 5 to 10 years and it is important we can offer our volunteers the shift quota they want, and we can reach more and more callers too. The expanded Ops room will allow for all that.

All of that work will leave a lasting legacy which should enable our branch to stay in its present home for much longer than would have been possible without any expansion of the Ops room.

A wide range of fundraising activities during another testing year with many of our regular fundraising opportunities still cancelled or postponed. We are very grateful to our volunteers and friends who continued to raise money for us in all sorts of creative ways. The fundraising activities this year included:

• London Marathon – 3 October 2021
• Swim Serpentine - 18 September 2021
• Royal Parks Half Marathon – 10 October 2021
• Hackney half marathon - 26 September
• Samarathon - Month of July
• ‘50 for 50’ to mark the branch’ 50th anniversary our volunteers took part in a variety of challenges and activities. This campaign ran until the end of the year, and our volunteers ran the Lands End and gave up alcohol for 50 days, painted 50 greeting cards, sold 50 books, and sold 50 items on eBay.

Thank you to everyone who contributed with standing orders and donations and by sponsoring and cheering on fellow volunteers.

In addition to funds raised by individual volunteers and friends, we’ve also benefited from grants for the branch refurbishment from National Lottery Community Fund, Screwfix, Pears Foundation, and the Garfield Weston Foundation.