No call for help goes unanswered

Our branch finally re-opened for face-to-face support on June 1st, 2022. Face-to-face emotional support is a crucial part of our service. We offer a safe space for anyone who needs someone to talk to, who may be struggling or has perhaps reached crisis point. We are now open every day of the week from 9am to 9pm. No appointment or referral needed.

Before COVID

We saw callers between 9am and 9pm, every day of the year, as a drop-in service. Some days we saw as many as 20; some days half-a-dozen or so. On average, ten a day.  Some were regular; we were part of how they coped with life.  Some were homeless; we make regular outreach visits to food drop sites and individuals would then come to the branch for support. Some were local workers or students, perhaps brought in by their manager, referred by their college or university, or who heard of us through the talks we do. And many we just don’t know about, of course.

During lockdowns

We closed to callers when the first lockdown came into effect on March 23^rd, 2020. We vowed to keep the branch going 24x7, despite volunteers shielding, moving out of London, unwilling to travel by public transport, and so on. We manged to keep our phone lines open throughout the many lockdowns we had. We also used this time to improve our branch’s ventilation and reorganise our internal layout to space out desks in the phone room. We created three larger rooms for potential visitors and improved ventilation in these, in the hope that we would re-open soon. 

Preparing to reopen

Before re-opening our branch to visitors, we had to ensure that we:

• Prepared volunteers, especially those (now about 130) who’d never experienced a face-to-face contact before;
• Acquired and tested the technology to enable contacts to be observed and heard for callers and volunteers’ safeguarding;
• Redecorated and prepared the three newly-created visitor rooms;
• Set up new guidance and processes, including capturing information for the evaluation of the pilot.

Where we are now

In the first two weeks of re-opening, we had 34 visitors. On the quietest days we had none at all. On the busiest day we had seven. It’s still too early and the numbers are too low to see any pattern emerging. 

We’re still working on …

• Improving our waiting room. It had been neglected for over two years. Most of the plants had died and it looked very shabby.
• Improving our exterior. We are in a courtyard and visitors and volunteers are faced with the bins and debris of the local café and neighbouring flats. Our staff members are working with neighbours to improve the area, get regular cleaning of the courtyard and improve our external signage.

Every visitor is someone who has chosen to seek emotional support in person from another human being and we are proud and humbled to be providing this again. This wouldn’t have been possible without the kindness and hard work of a great many volunteers: the training team and onsite support team who are supporting newer volunteers and those volunteers who re-decorated our visitor rooms. Last but not least, we are grateful to all of you who keep supporting us over the years!