Priority 4: Capacity
Growing and supporting Samaritans’ team, to be as good as we can be.
This year, we spent £2.9m on this strategic priority area.
When I started, there wasn’t so much technology. I remember being on the first email shift at this branch. When you think about it, the service is the same. That side is absolutely unchanged. In terms of the availability, things have changed because what was one man on a telephone is now thousands of people.
Shona, Samaritans volunteer
One of the main reasons why I love being a volunteer and one of the main things I get out of it is community. Being on shift and being at the branch is one of the places where I feel most comfortable.
Aisha, Samaritans volunteer
One Samaritans
In 2023 we marked an incredible 70 years of listening, and more than 134 million calls for help answered. What started with “one man and a telephone” is now an amazing community of around 23,000 people, in more than 200 branches and locations across the UK and Ireland. On the anniversary itself, a special thank you moment was held for Samaritans’ staff and volunteers.
This year we began asking ‘what it is to be a Samaritans branch or hub’ in a review of how branches and the central charity work together. The aim is to create ‘one Samaritans’ in which the work of our staff and volunteers integrates seamlessly to ensure consistent and high-quality services and operations across the organisation.
Developing volunteers and staff
This year we launched a number of initiatives aimed at better supporting and engaging with Samaritans volunteer leaders. Being a volunteer leader can be demanding, so we’ve redefined the scope and structure of Branch Director and other volunteer leadership roles to create a more flexible, inclusive and welcoming environment for future leaders. We’ve also introduced a new quarterly calendar that maps out the months ahead with key activities for planning, while regular one-hour leadership calls help support two-way communication and feedback. We held virtual conferences for Samaritans’ staff and volunteers, to share and celebrate our wide-ranging work and impact.
In autumn 2023, we launched a programme of learning and development for all Samaritans’ staff, including an internal apprenticeship scheme provided by Corndel College and funded by the Government Apprenticeship Levy.
Samaritans Training School (STS) was created in 2021 to increase our capacity for recruitment and training of listening volunteers. This year STS reported that it has so far recruited nearly 900 potential volunteers, of whom more than 620 have completed their training.