Every time I speak to a health professional about my mental health, at some point I just know that they will advise me to contact Samaritans if I feel like ending it all. The cynical part of me, which is rather a large part, sees this as arse-covering, in case following our discussion I take the nuclear option. The more rational part of me, a rather small part, sees this as a means to prevent loss of life. Perhaps, it could be a combination of both? Anyway, the Samaritans themselves have been in the news lately and not in a good way as the suits at the top propose closing half of their existing 200 local branches. Not everyone is happy.
The view from the top is that Samaritans need – and I cannot believe I am writing this – regional call-centres, as part of a “future-proofing” strategy aimed at reducing costs and improving services. Christ, it sounds just like Big Business talking and not a charity spoken of by many as the fourth emergency service.
22,000 volunteers staff Samaritans’ offices and in 2024 took a staggering 160,000 calls, an average of 430 calls a day. Since Samaritans was formed in 1953, 134 million people have contacted the charity. It is not possible to calculate just how many lives have been saved, but it is also not hard to work out that it is more than a few.
I have known people who volunteer for Samaritans and they are like you and me, at least that’s what they will tell you and me. I think they are heroes, albeit regular people, often with 9 to 5 jobs to hold down, who care passionately for the well-being of their fellow woman and man. In my experience, while the work they carry out can be very individualistic, talking to someone at their lowest ebb, around them are fellow volunteers who have become friends who they can rely on and lean on after taking calls. The volunteers have hearts, too, and are not always able to compartmentalise certain situations. But when your mate is sitting next to you, you can unload your own feelings and emotions. It’s what humans do. Would a regionalised service make things better?
I can’t see it. Volunteers would have to travel further in order to do their volunteering, many of whom it is suggested could operate from home. Now, I am very much in favour of home-working, which I think should be encouraged where possible, but not everyone would want to deal alone with a seriously disturbed, desperate suicidal individual in the early hours and then simply return to bed, without a care in the world. I mean, some folk could probably do this, but most volunteers, as I have said before, are part of a team, which supports its members.
As well as that, women are regularly abused when taking calls. One woman told the Guardian: “Female Sams [Samaritans] in particular are regularly abused on calls, I would strongly object to having those calls in my own home, alone.” Well, as a man I wouldn’t be too keen on that either and frankly I would not volunteer to carry out this kind of work in my own home. Who on Earth is pushing for this to go ahead? Step forward, Keith Leslie, Samaritans’ national chair.
Inevitably, I fear, Mr Leslie is, according again to The Guardian, “a former oil company executive, is a leadership expert with years of experience as a charity trustee.” Hmm. I’ve met a few “leadership experts” in my years in the third sector and many of them have been idiots, with all the empathy and common sense as a breeze block. The suits want to “answer more calls, cut waiting times and attract more volunteers” by … er … closing half of its offices, opening call centres, presumably leaving entire towns without a local presence and seeing a mass exodus of existing volunteers. Yeah, as this article says, it makes no sense.
I know what it feels like to be dumped alone in a broom cupboard of a small office in Easton, Bristol by the bullies and abusers of the British Red Cross when I was working for pennies, giving hope to lonely and isolated people. If this joke of a so-called humanitarian organisation (actually, it’s a self-serving shit show) can treat its workers and volunteers like this, maybe Samaritans got the idea from them?
If I felt the need to contact Samaritans, I wonder if I would prefer to speak to someone who lived relatively close to me and understands the place. Surely someone in a call centre would not. There is something comforting speaking to someone local and not just a random person wearing a headset in big room of people wearing headsets. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I think these things matter.
I don’t blame Samaritans’ volunteers if they quit rather than travel larger distances to take calls or even take calls at home. And a key word in this is volunteers.
While the chair Mr Leslie is also a volunteer, the CEO Julie Bentley isn’t, trousering a not inconsiderable £140,000 a year. Without the 22,000 volunteers, what exactly be the point of Ms Bentley? She wouldn’t have much to do, except perhaps to take calls from the desperate and suicidal. After the desperate and suicidal, aren’t the volunteers the most important people at the charity?
Not everything is better when it’s done on the cheap – sorry, “future-proofing”, as business-speak might put it – and if the current model works best, then keep it. From what I know of the Samaritans, it isn’t broken so don’t try to fix it.
