Thousands of people contact us every year by phone, face to face, or by email.
Since the Walsall & District Branch started in 1969, Samaritans has continued to develop with the changing times, yet many of the basics remain. We realised early on the value of ordinary people listening to others at times of emotional distress - that's still what we do.
For over 40 years, Samaritans has been there for people in Walsall and the surrounding towns. The branch is staffed entirely by trained volunteers, and has to raise its own funds to cover running costs.
Walsall Samaritans statistics 2010
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During the year we received 18,900 contacts, including 28 visitors and 1446 emails.
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Just over 70% of the people who “talk” to us, by whatever means, express despair, distress, or suicidal thoughts – in email contacts, this figure is over 95%.
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In emails there is a higher proportion who self-harm than in callers in general.
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More than half of emails express suicidal thoughts or feelings; almost half are from people 17 or under.
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At the end of 2010 we had 56 volunteers undertaking listening duties, each giving around 13 hours of their time each month to offer confidential emotional support to those who contact us.
- In addition we had 4 support volunteers helping us with our finance, health and safety, statistics and IT.
- Read the 2010 Annual Report