Samaritans Scotland strategic delivery plan: Tackling suicide together

Our vision is that fewer people die by suicide

To achieve this, we believe Samaritans has a crucial role to play in:

• Reducing the risk factors that make some people more likely to take their own lives in Scotland.
• Ensuring that people who experience increased risk of suicide are supported.
• Making it less likely that people who do experience suicidal thoughts act on them.
• Reducing the likelihood that people will develop suicidal thoughts.

Our mission

We’re here every day and night of the year for anyone struggling to cope. We make sure people have somewhere to turn and support when they need it most. We work with communities to let people know we’re here for them and we campaign to make suicide prevention a priority.

We've worked closely with people who have contacted Samaritans, been affected by suicide or suicidal thoughts, and those who volunteer and work with us or support us to identify five major ambitions for our new strategic delivery plan to improve Access, Reach, Impact, Capacity and Sustainability.

The Samaritans Scotland Strategic Delivery Plan 2022-24 should be read alongside the Samaritans 2022­–27 strategy which set outs the direction of travel for our organisation across all five jurisdictions in which we operate: England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

The two-year delivery objectives set out in this document are specific to Scotland and will be delivered alongside wider UK and Republic of Ireland developments to meet our aim, that fewer people die by suicide.

We will provide a review of our progress against these Scotland-specific objectives each year and will publish an updated Scottish delivery plan in Spring 2024, focused on the final three years of the Samaritans’ strategy.