#Prevention and Communities Grants Programme
To enable persons in Birmingham and the surrounding area as well as elsewhere who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those who may be at risk of suicide, to receive confidential emotional support at any time of the day or night, in order to improve their emotional health and to reduce the incidence of suicide. Our 200 or so volunteers go through rigorous training, and then offer a service by phone, via email, and in person. This is all delivered from our premises in Bow Street, which we aim to keep open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Our freephone number is 116 123 and our email is jo@samaritans.org. 

In the past six months alone, we helped nearly 15,000 people, many of whom have problems that are insuperable in practical terms, but whom we support, nevertheless. Among so many others, they include people in the terminal stages of cancer; who are living in abusive relationships; who may be going through heartrending breakups; or are in the throes of bereavement. There are also those who feel guilty about something or fear the consequences of telling anybody else, and so turn to us knowing that their conversations will be totally anonymous, confidential, and non-judgemental. 

Almost half of our callers raise mental health or illness as a serious concern, be it in the form of depression, anxiety, or full-blown psychosis. To many, we offer their only ‘out of hours’ support, as their professional carers find it increasingly difficult to run beyond the working day.  

 
To promote a better understanding in society of suicide, suicidal behaviour and the value of expressing feelings which may otherwise lead to suicide or impaired emotional health. To do this we offer outreach services to agencies such as National Rail, with whom we work to support witnesses of suicide on the railway, and to schools and colleges where we run educational sessions to teach students about mental resilience, and how to deal with difficult personal problems. We also work with the Listeners (carefully selected prisoners trained by ourselves) at Birmingham prison to support inmates who suffer the same problems as the rest of us, but amplified by their sense of guilt, isolation, and lack of family or friends round them. 

https://www.samaritans.org/branches/birmingham/ 

@SamaritansBham