By Paola Pizzoli | Community & Corporate Engagement Officer
The pandemic has impacted many of us and particularly people with pre-existing mental health conditions, young people, health workers, people in prison and middle-aged men.
In addition, in the UK, we are currently experiencing significant financial pressures which are about to impact many of the most vulnerable people in society as energy and other costs are set to increase in a way that has not been seen for decades.
As we know from our 2017 Dying from Inequality report, socioeconomic disadvantage increases the risk of suicidal behaviour. Men in the lowest social class, living in the most deprived areas, are up to ten times more at risk of suicide than those in the highest social class, living in the most affluent areas.
This is why, now more than ever, it is important for our listening volunteers to do all that they can to be here for people who are in need of support.
One of our main goals is to increase the available shift hours so we can provide emotional support to a greater number of people. This should be feasible given the successes we have seen in our on-line training of new volunteers. Having made certain changes to the layout of our premises already, we continue to look at ways in which capacity can be expanded in a safe and compliant way, including looking at minor changes to our rota pattern.
The majority of the effort required to achieve this goal will be in the continued focus on recruitment and training of new volunteers. We have plans to train a further 100 listening volunteers before the end of December 2022.
Another key goal of ours is to re-establish and extend our Outreach Programme within the local community. This covers our work with the homeless, prisoners, educational organisations, those bereaved by suicide, corporates and organisations wanting to support their staff in dealing with difficult issues. Our volunteer leads in each of these areas are working hard to make sure we provide as much support as possible to these vulnerable groups.
An example of the expansion in service we are planning is through our ‘Facing the Future’ programme which provides support to those bereaved by suicide. We run this program in conjunction with the bereavement charity Cruse and our plans for the next 12 months alone include running 48 on-line support groups, each having up to 7 individuals who need our support, with each group running for 6 consecutive weeks for 90 minutes per session.
Our volunteers play a vital role in supporting people and we are determined to remain open to ensure we are there for anyone who need someone to talk to.
By Paola Pizzoli | Community & Corporate Engagement Officer
By Caroline Fahy | Trustee and Listening volunteer
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