No call for help goes unanswered

In the UK it has been decided that we are fully opening up society again on 19th July. This affects all of us at Central London Samaritans in the most positive of ways. It means that finally, after 17 months, we can welcome back our Face to Face callers back into the branch.

In normal times CLS alone welcomes around 4,500 callers who prefer to see us in person each year. We are open from 9am to 9pm every day of the year and people in distress can visit us when they need to, without an appointment. It has been very hard on some of our callers not to have been able to do this as they consider CLS a safe space in which to just be. As you know we listen without judgement, without giving advice and for many people just being able to sit and cry with gentle support means they can get through the day. 

As a branch we once again face the challenge of working out the logistics and creating spaces that we volunteers and our callers feel comfortable and safe in. We aim to use our larger rooms to give more space between us and obviously providing masks and sanitiser for those who want to use them. We will need to do some work on altering our rooms to be comfortable for all, this means we will have fewer rooms than normal but we feel that is necessary. We hope to have everything in place as soon as possible after 19th July. 

As always your donations give us the means to make these alterations and cope with the added expenses to get this most valuable service up and running again. Along side our 24/7 phoneline this service benefits so many in our local community and I know our callers will be delighted to have their safe space back. 

Thank you so much as always for your support