New volunteers expected to do all kinds of days and hours, and at least 3 hrs a week with at least 1 overnight shift every 3 months. This is incompatible with those who have children to care for and also work full time. Even those who don't have kids and work full time have difficulty managing this. This skews the listener volunteer demographic to mainly middle class retirees with cars, own homes, few financial worries, out of touch/can't relate with the current state of social services, government agencies and working class people problems. They do this for an ego boost, only work hours that are comfortable for them, leaving unsocial hours to new or a few very committed volunteers. Majority of callers are lonely older people who don't work and aren't close to their families for various reasons; lonely people who have difficulties socialising for various reasons; angry people shouting down the phone being belligerent/sarcastic about the volunteer's inability to solve their money/housing/job/relationship problems for them. Female volunteers get a lot of male sex pests calling up to masturbate to fantasies about sex involving rape and children. A lot of prisoners call as well and when they encounter female listeners, a large proportion of them want to talk about sex. Female volunteers are encouraged to "explore feelings" with these men because they must have been "traumatised" to act this way. Samaritans callers are now routed nationally across UK and Ireland so get a fair few callers with thick accents that are very challenging to make sense of, making it difficult to understand/converse/"help" them. Very rarely are there truly suicide calls, but many bored/lonely regular callers will claim to be suicidal to keep the volunteer on the line. Deteriorating NHS services mean that more callers with serious mental health issues are redirected to Samaritans whenever NHS mental services are closed/overwhelmed. Many callers are in the midst of a serious mental health crisis - upset/angry, psychotic, incoherent callers blaming the world for their ills, threatening to do something violent to whomever is living with them to "fix" their issues. Samaritans can do nothing unless caller gives address+name, which never happens as callers are often paranoid about police/doctors. The in-house training is 6 weeks of group classes using standardised teaching material from Samaritans HQ which teaches the "listening wheel" and the stepped approach to discussing suicide with callers. After group class training, training is then conducted 1:1 by so-called "mentors" - mostly old-timers in the branch who listen in on conversations new volunteers take, telling them what to say. Caller numbers are auto-logged by HQ. Any personal details given by callers are stored in HQ servers too. Zero consistency in how mentors teach because they were trained ages ago, answering phones in their own way. It's all very vague - basically if a trainee gells well with their mentor and don't question the flaws in the system, then he/she will be approved as a volunteer. There are branch politics/unspoken hierarchy/cliques - everyone keeps quiet about bullying/makes snide remarks - the only solution is for the person picked on to resign. Some volunteers seem to weirdly derive pleasure when sharing callers' sexual/relationship problems to other volunteers (and whomever).It's all very superficial. Samaritans are taught to never give advice; never disclose anything, i.e. never agree with the caller on any opinion/preference, even if they did. While old-timers get away with saying what they like, new Samaritans are chastised if conversations aren't focused only on caller's "feelings" - no "chatting" with callers about anything else - must allow more silences so "callers can talk more". All this can result in a cold, unempathic, unnatural conversation style. Few people who aren't trained counsellors can talk like this without sounding stunted and unemotional. Doesn't suit callers who aren't "talkers", and not effective either for callers in acute states of psychosis wanting to do something violent, which are all typical calls that Samaritans get. The Samaritans approach uses aspects of Carl Roger's Person-Centred therapy but can't build long term relationships with callers to help them improve/change their lives. The irony is they want unpaid volunteers. If they'll only hire and pay trained counsellors, the service quality could be improved.Campaign for a better NHS, social services, government, etc. that make a difference. Not this. This is a vain attempt to show donors they’re doing “something”. Every Conservative’s wet dream is to defund public services and direct everyone affected to the Samaritans.
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