What's in a date?

Awareness

This Sunday is the 24th of July, or 24/7, which is our national awareness day. Chosen as our awareness day because our volunteers are available to listen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. In the last year, the charity’s volunteers (UK and Ireland) gave 1 million hours to supporting people who needed to talk.

Each year we use this time of year to raise awareness of Samaritans as we know that many people find it hard to speak openly when they are struggling. By promoting our services, we hope to encourage more people to Talk to Us, rather than being alone with their feelings.

Many people still hesitate about getting in contact as they feel their worries are not big enough to talk about, however, we know that by being able to talk about the things which are worrying you, can help you feel less alone and it can also be life-saving so we want to encourage anyone who is struggling to get in contact.

Anyone can:

• Phone us FREE on 116 123,
• Email us at [email protected] or
• Write us a letter (Freepost Samaritans Letters).

Supporting someone else

If you are worried about somebody you care about, our SHUSH listening tips may help you to open up a conversion. SHUSH stands for

• Show you care
• Have patience
• Use open questions (where the answer can’t be yes or no)
• Say it back
• Have courage

What’s really importance is that whilst you are supporting other people, you look after yourself too.

Becoming more involved

If you are reading this and would like to become more involved, there are a number of ways to get involved:

Volunteer with us

The only super-power you need to be a listening volunteer is to be tolerant and open-minded. If you are interested in being a volunteer, read more about our volunteer journey and how to apply here.

Fundraise for us

We are a charity and we rely on donations to keep our helpline open. If you have a passion for running, baking cakes or running Beetle Drives, then take a look through our Fundraising pages for information on how to become part of #TeamSamaritans.