Bedfordshire Samaritans Need Your Help
Bedfordshire Samaritans Need Your Help
Could you Volunteer with Samaritans?
The idea of a non-religious telephone Help Line was started by a young clergyman The Reverend Chad Varrah in 1937 after he had officiated at the funeral of a 13 year old girl. He was shocked and saddened to discover that the girl had committed suicide because she thought she had some dreadful disease. She had nobody to whom she could talk to, nobody that she felt that she could discuss things with. She felt that the only option open to her was to take her own life. Because she committed suicide she was buried in unconsecrated ground. Chad Varrah decided there and then to try to help put an end to some taboos and to give ordinary people the opportunity to talk openly about sensitive subjects.
It took some time to set things up, but in 1953 he began pastoral counselling at St Stephen’s Wallbrook in London and he was able to set up a ‘non-religious’ telephone help line.
There are now 200 branches in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Last year the entire Samaritan organisation received over 5,000,000 contacts. Every 5 seconds someone contacts the Samaritans; every 57 seconds Samaritans receive a contact from someone who is feeling suicidal.
We are a volunteer led organisation. Samaritans has a central office which prepares standard training materials, deals with the media, provides websites and manages the countrywide telephone platform. They have around 85 staff. That means there are 212 volunteers for every paid member of staff. The average ratio among the top 500 fundraising charities is estimated at 44 to 1.
Luton, South Beds and Harpenden Samaritans to give us our official title, usually shortened to Luton Sams have been in Luton since 1966. We try to man the phones 24/7 and to do this we should really keep our volunteer levels at around 100. Our ages range from 18 to over 80. Because we are a completely confidential service you will never hear about what, if anything, we achieve. We do not ask callers anything about their background or where in the country they are calling from, we just listen to what they want to tell us.
We currently have 90 listening volunteers and between us we took 19,689 calls, answered some 2,116 emails and 1,456 texts whilst seeing 83 Face to Face callers over the 12 months. Many of these callers are coping with some degree of suicidal feelings
All our volunteers are trained to an extremely high standard. Each volunteer receives about 6 weeks of intensive training (6 full days) and then are given a Mentor to work with and support them until they become a probationer. The probation period lasts for about 6 months after which they become a full Samaritan.
In our modern world of pressure and rush, there needs to be someone who just simply listens without any time constraints and who doesn’t judge you. Sometimes talking to a stranger on the phone means you can tell that stranger things you have never been able to say before with the complete confidence that we will not tell them what to do.
We are never shocked or try to give advice
We simply listen
That’s why we exist
That’s why we are so busy
And that is why we need more volunteers
Would you consider volunteering with Luton Samaritans?
For more information call 03705 627282. Email [email protected] or visit www.samaritans.org/volunteer-us
If something’s troubling you and you would like to talk, get in touch with your local branch:
Call: 01582 720666 (local call charges apply)
National telephone: 116 123 (this number is free to call)
Email Samaritans: [email protected]
Visit our branch: Samaritans Luton33 Cardiff RoadLutonBedfordshireLU1 1PP
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Bedfordshire Samaritans Need Your Help
Bedfordshire Samaritans Need Your Help