Samaritans: Bognor Regis, Chichester & District Branch reaches out to help save lives – could you help?

This phrase is often used by the charity, and Nick Taunt, Branch Director of the Bognor Regis, Chichester & District branch of Samaritans, says it encapsulates what the volunteers are about.

“There is nothing special about the volunteers, except a desire and determination to help people who are really in despair,” he says. “And a need to offer a human voice and listen and give people time, in confidence and without judgement, to talk through how they are feeling.”

What do Samaritans do?

The charity is known as the place to turn for people who want to end their lives, or who are having suicidal thoughts. But the volunteers who man the phone lines 24 hours a day, all year, do much more than that.

It began 70 years ago, founded by a clergyman Chad Varah, who was so distressed at the suicide of a teenage girl in his Parish, he offered sessions for people to come and talk to him about what was troubling them. The idea spread, firstly through the church and then wider. It was a national newspaper, picking up on the story, that nicknamed them Samaritans.

“Samaritans are committed to reducing the number of people who take their own lives,” Nick said. “At the sharpest end there are people determined to take their own life and they are ringing up because they want a human voice to be there when they take their life.”

Other callers may be having suicidal thoughts and have plans to end their lives. “But we sense they want someone to talk things through with them,” Nick says, and listening and talking can give them control and a determination to see a way forward.

And others might be feeling generally overwhelmed, troubled or lonely and getting to a point where they cannot see a way through their emotions and need to gain back some control.

“We don’t advise,” Nick says. “We ask questions and we listen and we offer callers a safe space to talk and try to give some perspective.”

Nick says people, particularly men, are not good at sitting down and opening up about emotions. “We try to help them get some sense of perspective, to enable them to explore what they are going through in that moment and if there is something they can do about it,” he said.

About the local branch

Bognor Regis, Chichester & District branch of Samaritans is run from a little terraced house in Argyll Road in Bognor Regis. It has about 75 volunteers – and 14 more currently being trained. It recruits from the surrounding Chichester and Arun districts. Volunteers do shifts lasting three hours. The earliest start at 6am whilst the late shifts end at 1am or 2am. Once a month there is a night shift and phones will be answered between 11pm and 5am.

A call to the Samaritans Freephone number could be put through to a volunteer anywhere, so calls come in from all over the country.

Local volunteers also fundraise, do outreach work and work with other local charities, schools and the university.

Joining the Samaritans

The aim is to boost numbers to 100 volunteers and recruitment is ongoing. Adults from all walks of life join Samaritans. Nick said there are youth workers, carpenters, university people, scientists, shopworkers, homemakers, hospital workers and carers. Some have full-time jobs as well, some work part-time and some care for others or are not working at all.

Travel expenses are paid – although many donate that back - and there is ongoing training and support. After every shift a volunteer will have a ‘download’ session with an experienced colleague to talk through the calls they have taken.

Nick says it’s important that volunteers can go home from the Samaritans office and leave behind what they’ve heard.

Most volunteers will attend an information evening to find out more, then, there is an online application process and that will be followed up by an interview. Training begins with six weeks (evening) sessions and then volunteers begin by joining shifts and listening in on calls, and starting to take calls themselves, supervised by another experienced volunteer.

New recruits spend six months ‘embedding’ into the role, where they are supported and mentored.

“You can learn the theory and do the practice sessions but you learn most when you have actually been talking to callers,” Nick said. He joined as a volunteer in 2019 and began taking calls as Covid hit. Samaritans were classed as key workers and the branch continued to take calls throughout the pandemic and lockdowns.

Fundraising

Running the local branch costs at least £22,000 per year. The only paid member of staff is the cleaner who cleans the office. Money comes from legacies, grants, gifts, wills and people doing sponsored events as well as some rattling of buckets. The local branch has to raise its own money and desperately needs more support and people to choose the charity to support.

Outreach work

Samaritans do talks in secondary schools to help teenagers know how to talk to friends who may be struggling. They also support the work of mental health ambassadors at the University of Chichester.

They train and advise volunteers at a local foodbank – helping them to strike up conversations with people coming to the foodbank to help those who may be lonely or feeling isolated or overwhelmed to open up in the right way.

And they work directly with the homeless charity Stonepillow, which helps people without a home find permanent accommodation in the Chichester and Bognor Regis areas. The charity gives ongoing to support to its clients – homelessness is usually much more than the lack of a roof over your head. And Samaritans do weekly sessions talking directly to those clients.

Find out more

To find out more about volunteering, fundraising or the work of Bognor Regis, Chichester & District Branch of Samaritans visit the website here

If you want to speak to a listening volunteer call the Freephone line 116 123