Eastbourne and District Samaritans

As one of more than 200 branches and locations across the UK and Ireland, we contribute to supporting people all over the country but also locally via our extensive Outreach and Awareness activities in Eastbourne and our District. At Samaritans, our vision is that fewer people die by suicide.

Our work in suicide prevention

We provide a unique 24-hour listening service across the UK and Ireland. Every year, we answer more than 5 million calls for help by phone, email, SMS, letter, face to face or through our Welsh language service.

Samaritans volunteers may also work alongside local services or support people at events and festivals. Some of our branches have partnerships with A&E departments, mental health teams or GP surgeries so they can support patients and their families. We also work to improve support for people bereaved by suicide. And if a tragedy or natural disaster affects a community, we may go out to offer support to local people, or work alongside police or emergency services.

We run peer support in prisons called the Listener scheme, which exists in nearly every prison across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. Listeners are selected, trained and supported by volunteers from a nearby Samaritans branch, so that they can provide support for their peers in prison.

We give talks, run workshops and provide materials for schools to help children and young people understand and cope with their own feelings and respect other people’s feelings. We also offer support for schools if there’s been a suicide in the school community.

We work in partnership with Network Rail and the wider rail industry to reduce suicide on the railways. We train railway staff to help people who appear to beat risk at a station. We might be asked to visit a station to support rail staff and the travelling public following an incident. We are developing partnerships with other sectors and industries where there is a high risk of suicide.

We develop learning tools to help people in the workplace support colleagues who might be going through a tough time and also look after their own wellbeing. We also provide training in workplaces, sharing our skills and experience in talking about difficult issues and helping people cope with their feelings. We are developing a programme of support for military personnel, reservists, veterans and their families.

We are developing new self-help and peer support resources that will enable people to help themselves and each other at an early stage before they reach crisis point. This includes tips and advice for people who support others, so that they can identify when someone is in distress, feel confident communicating about difficult issues, and able to signpost to Samaritans or other support where that’s needed.

Our influencing work is about engaging with the Government and others in positions of power to make sure that they are doing everything possible to prevent suicide. We do this by working with Parliamentarians and other influential contacts to improve policy and the law, as well as working with journalists to promote responsible reporting of suicide. We undertake research ourselves and use the best available evidence from others to inform all our work across services and influencing.

Our current priorities

To increase the number of people contacting us and enhance our ability to respond effectively, we aim to ensure a high-quality emotional support service is available through multiple channels, including phone, text, email, letter, and in person. This includes implementing our new telephone system, Connect, to reduce the engaged rate and exploring new service delivery methods such as Instant Messaging. Additionally, we are committed to making our services free for callers.

We will continue to reach high-risk groups and communities, reducing the risk of suicide and fostering local and national partnerships. Key initiatives include advancing our Network Rail Partnership through research and evaluation, progressing the Samaritans Prison Listener Scheme, and collaborating with social media platforms, other charities, and service users to address suicide in the online environment. Furthermore, our Step by Step programme will provide postvention support in schools.

To improve the quality and consistency of our services, we are focused on ensuring that every Samaritans user experiences a responsive service tailored to their needs. Consistent implementation of quality assurance processes across all services and projects is a top priority.

We aim to influence public policy and raise awareness of the challenges of reducing suicide by maintaining strong local and national relationships, shaping suicide prevention policies, and using insights from our callers to encourage help-seeking and inform public policy. We also collaborate with media organisations to promote responsible suicide reporting and strengthen referral pathways with partner agencies working with high-risk groups.

Finally, we strive to be a knowledgeable, adaptive organisation that delivers accessible, high-quality services. This involves demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach, understanding the needs and experiences of our service users, applying evidence-based practices to improve support services, and increasing user involvement in all aspects of our work.

Our current challenges

The UK and Ireland are experiencing economic uncertainty, along with cuts to public spending and social welfare systems. There has been a decrease in people’s material, social and psychological wellbeing, with fewer resources available to provide help.

Suicide reduction requires multiple organisations across sectors working together. This is hindered by lack of understanding of suicidal behaviour and the perception that responsibility for its reduction rests exclusively with mental health services.

There are gaps in the provision of mental health services for those who are suicidal. Mental health problems play a very important role in suicide, but the wider causes and context of suicidal feelings and behaviour need to be understood and addressed in their own right. There is a lack of 24 hour crisis care and people fall into gaps between primary and secondary care and the emergency services.

Online and digital forms of communication and interaction have become an integral part of people’s lives, yet whilst the online environment can be supportive, safe and informative for vulnerable people; it can also harbour harmful and dangerous places.

There is a large body of research about suicidal behaviour, but only limited evidence about what works best to prevent or reduce suicide, for different groups.