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Jersey's Samaritans have launched a campaign to boost the number of volunteers able to take calls from people in need, no matter the hour. But what happens on a shift? Express went behind the scenes to find out...
The charity offers phone, letter and email listening services, on the principle that fewer people should die by suicide.
Currently, Jersey's 55 active volunteers mean the local Samaritans branch can be open 65 hours a week, but branch director Tarnia Snepp says she hopes to bring this number up to 100 people over the next three years.
Jersey's Samaritans branch is based in a house on Hue Street that was donated to them. It's kitted out with a kitchen, training space, and booths to take calls from.
Shifts are two or three hours long – sometimes four – and run into late evenings and early mornings. The key "hours of need", where there are more callers but fewer volunteers, begin after midnight strikes. From that point, the calls "do not stop", according to one new recruit.
"There are always calls and there are always emails. Or if you need a break, if you've had a really hard call, you can always do a few emails.
"You don't have to take another call until you are ready, until you've spoken about it or had a cup of tea or something. Biscuits are very important."
People call with a range of issues: bereavement, bereavement by suicide, abuse from childhood, problems in the workplace, mental health, physical harassment, bullying, alcoholism, drugs, coercive relationships, debt, family problems, fights over wills, anxiety, eating disorders, insomnia and more. Calls are confidential and volunteers never see a phone number.
Joanna, a listening volunteer, explained: "They're ordinary people with a problem and they get ordinary people listening to them."
Volunteers work in pairs, speaking about calls and checking each other's emails.
Calls come from across the British Isles and, with 20,000 volunteers nationally, a Jersey caller is very unlikely to speak to a local volunteer, but, as Tarnia explains, they are welcome to check which branch they are speaking to.
After a call, volunteers can turn off their phone and write down brief notes, including the caller's gender and whether they need to be called back.
Meanwhile, the day's leader, Mary – who goes by 'Mary 5', as there were four Marys before her – explained she needed to be contactable on the phone.
"At the end of a shift, they would phone me and say what's gone on, a rough idea of the sort of calls or if there's any concerns about calls, or if we've got to make any calls back to people, that sort of thing... There's always a leader, 24 hours a day, there's someone to make contact with."
Some volunteers take on extra roles. Mary 5 writes letters through the correspondence branch, where people handwrite letters and a small branch looks after them and replies to them.
'Jackie 6' and Joanna take calls from prisoners, as prison cells will often have a phone direct to Samaritans. The charity also trains prisoners to become listening volunteers to other prisoners.
Often calls from prisoners can be triggered by their imminent release.
Pictured: Typical duty stations that volunteers use.
"They're not far off leaving and they really want to talk through how they hope things are going to go," Joanna explained.
The phenomenon is called "gate fever".
"It's a very real thing – it's a big, wide world, and they've been looking forward to going out there, and suddenly it's getting very close.
"They want to talk through, perhaps repeatedly, where they're going to go, what they're going to do, how will they cope out there?
"It's a very alien thing. If you've been in prison five years, things have changed a lot."
Training takes six weeks and is the same across all branches. Recruits learn to use active listening and adapt to different callers and situations – and, importantly, learn how to end a call.
Confidentiality is "sacrosanct", the volunteer team added, with a very small number of exceptions – including when a member of the public requests to be called back a few days later.
Practice calls from experienced volunteers can be "daunting", a new recruit to the branch said.
Pictured: Tarnia with some of the branch's volunteers.
At the end of training, volunteers are assigned a mentor and listen in to their calls, before they start taking calls independently.
When they become fully-fledged Samaritans, volunteers get a small ceremony, a certificate and a mug with their name.
"They're made to feel special" for getting through the intense training, Tarnia said.
Colleagues chat and support each other throughout the sessions, with the team describing how their shared humour gets them through.
"Once you come through that door, you can talk about calls, you can talk about anything.
"But the second you go out that door, nothing gets mentioned. You'll see each other in town and we'll be like, 'Hi, how's the dog, did you go for lunch?' It's like working for MI5."
Pictured: The Samaritans' values.
Joanna explained: "If you've had a very serious call, you will wait until your colleague is finished, and you'll chat through that."
A leader might also check up on a volunteer the next day.
Joanna said: "You come on a Samaritan shift and I think for 99% of us, 99% of the time, you go out thinking, 'Gosh my life is pretty good.'
"You realise how many people are struggling with all sorts of things."
Other highlights include a Christmas party (held in January), an annual tea party and an AGM.
Volunteers have to be committed – the branch asks for 15 hours a month – and many studying for professional exams find they don't have time to do both, Tarnia explained.
Men and women are involved, ranging from people in their 20s and into retirement. A stair lift and hearing-impaired phones make volunteering more accessible.
An enhanced DBS check is required because of outreach work in schools and prisons, though a criminal record doesn't necessarily exclude a potential volunteer from joining.
People are prepared with an introduction evening and an interview.
Tarnia said: "People are like, 'What if I'm dyslexic?' It doesn't matter. People are like, 'I'm not very good on computers.' Doesn't matter. People go, 'I don't think I'm empathic.' They often are the ones that are empathic."
"We've got people who work the hours of need that sleep here," she added.
"They live out the other side of the island, they don't want to be traveling at midnight, one o'clock in the morning, so they sleep here before they come in downstairs onto their shift. Creepy!" she laughed.
Jersey is "fortunate" and "incredibly spoilt" with a "beautiful" branch built on the site of a donated house, she added.
To find out more about volunteering, email jersey.branchrecruitment@samaritans.org or visit the branch's website.
The Samaritans are available 24/7 on 116123 or via email at jo@samaritans.org.
Send letters to the address: Freepost SAMARITANS LETTERS.
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