The reasons why people contact the Samaritans haven't changed much over the past 40 years, writes CHARLIE TAYLOR
THE WAYS in which people contact the Samaritans may have changed somewhat over the past 40 years, but the reasons they do so remain much the same.
While Ireland has experienced boom and bust in recent years, financial problems do not tend to feature as a primary reason for contacting the organisation. In fact, people call the Samaritans for many of the same reasons they did in 1970, when the organisation first began operating in Dublin.
According to a survey carried out by the organisation ahead of its 40th anniversary next week, almost a third of the 87,919 calls received by the Samaritans last year focused on feelings of loneliness and anxiety.
Relationship issues account for a further 24 per cent of calls while 21 per cent concern health problems. As many as 25 per cent of callers to the Samaritans admit to having suicidal thoughts, and it is a policy of the service to ask every caller if suicide is something that they have been considering.
“Suicide remains something that isn’t generally talked about and so if someone is in a place where they have thought about it, it’s often the case that they may find it difficult to tell someone about it. Because we’re anonymous it is a subject that can and is brought up with us,” says Maggie, the organisation’s outgoing director. (Samaritans volunteers prefer not to use their surnames.)
Other reasons for contacting the organisation include abuse, bereavement and addiction, although the Samaritans are keen to point out that individuals do not need to have a specific reason for calling them.
“One common misconception that people have is that they don’t have a big enough problem to contact the Samaritans. One thing we really try to get across is that if you’re having a bad day and you just want to vent or offload or whatever, then ring us,” says Orla, who looks after the organisation’s prisoner outreach programme.
“You don’t have to be at the end of your tether to call us, it might just be that it’s one of those days that really get to you and there’s a need to tell someone about it,” she adds.
The organisation currently has 340 active volunteers and many volunteers have been Samaritans for 10-15 years, while three of them were involved in establishing the service 40 years ago.
While the Samaritans get many requests from members of the public wishing to join the organisation, some of those who attend training don’t end up manning the phones.
All volunteers go through a rigorous programme which ensures that they are well positioned to be able to respond to callers and a large number end up ultimately deciding that the work is not for them.
“During training, we very much show the work in a ‘warts’n’all’-style and almost seek to put people off being part of the organisation because being a volunteer isn’t easy,” says Maggie.
“It requires an awful lot of commitment, the ability to be able to ask awkward questions such as inquiring about whether someone is suicidal or not, and, as we don’t attempt to offer advice or provide a solution, the skill to be a good listener who won’t seek to fix things for callers.”
Volunteers receive plenty of support in order to enable them to continue with the work on an ongoing basis, but still many admit that, at times, they find it difficult.
“The calls that affect you most aren’t necessarily the ones dealing with suicide, but are the ones that push your own buttons,” says Maggie.
“Every now and then there’s a call that really gets to you and you can’t help but wonder what happened next in the caller’s life.
“We believe in the value of talking, of offloading, not just for callers but also for ourselves, and this helps us to be able to cope, but in some situations you just have to be able to sit with the not knowing element of the work.”
While the main point of contact with callers remains the telephone, the organisation also offers a walk-in service and enables the public to get in contact via social networking sites, e-mail and text messaging.
In recent years it has also developed a number of outreach programmes which see it going out into the community to promote the work it does and, in some cases, to teach others how to do it.
One particular outreach programme which has proven successful is the prison support service, which has been running since 1991 and sees volunteers supporting people in six of the seven prisons in the capital.
As well as visiting the prisons in person, the organisation has also set up a peer support service where it teaches prisoners to become listeners for their fellow inmates.
“When we go in to prison we are only there for a couple of hours, but the listeners are on site all the time and this has become very popular,” says Orla.
“Not only do prisoners have limits on when they can make calls, but there are also privacy issues, so it can be more helpful for them to be able to speak to their peers, who receive similar training to volunteers, about the issues affecting them,” she adds.
Trying to quantify the impact of the Samaritans during 40 years in Dublin isn’t easy, but many of the organisation’s volunteers believe the work they do has proved invaluable.
“It’s difficult to say exactly how we’ve helped people, but we do get people dropping in to us to say thanks, and some people tell us that just knowing the service exists has been a tremendous support to them,” concludes Orla.
The Samaritans can be contacted at 1850-609090, www.samaritans.org
