Lanarkshire Samaritans
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-04676, in the name of Margaret Mitchell, on the 40th anniversary of Lanarkshire Samaritans in Hamilton. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates Lanarkshire Samaritans of Hamilton on its 40th anniversary; notes that, on 3 November 2012, the Samaritans held a special birthday party at which members of the public were able to gain an insight into the work of the Samaritans and could meet volunteers past and present; acknowledges that the Hamilton branch first opened in 1972 at Selkirk Place in Hamilton but soon relocated to new premises in order to better serve disabled callers and volunteers; considers that the Samaritans provides a free, confidential service for people to discuss their problems and that help is available by email and text as well as through telephone and drop-in services; recognises what it considers the hard work and tireless efforts of all those Samaritans volunteers who have worked in Hamilton over the last 40 years, and commends the efforts of the 20 Samaritans branches supported by over 1,000 volunteers throughout Scotland.
18:07
The Samaritans opened their first Scottish branch in Edinburgh some 53 years ago in 1959. Today, there are more than 20 branches across Scotland supported by over 1,000 volunteers, who take in excess of a staggering 2,500 calls each week. The Hamilton branch of the Samaritans first opened its doors in 1972 in Selkirk Place when, as I understand it, the Di Mambro family sold the premises to the Samaritans for the princely sum of just one penny. Last month, the Hamilton Samaritans held a special 40th birthday party to celebrate their ruby anniversary. I am delighted to welcome to the public gallery the Hamilton volunteers Nancy and Christine.
The birthday celebration offered the opportunity to members of the public, local politicians and families and friends of volunteers to learn more about the work of the Samaritans. In essence, the Samaritans are there to support anyone who is feeling down, depressed or isolated or who is struggling to cope. Contact can be made not only over the phone, but by post, text, or email or at the branch. People who contact the Samaritans are often at their wits’ end or at a crisis point at which problems appear insurmountable. The Samaritans are there to ensure that no one has to suffer alone. A caller can call once, twice or however many times they need, and the conversation ends when the caller is ready. Crucially, the service is confidential and people can speak freely about any problem that is troubling them, big or small, without being judged.
Samaritans volunteers come from all walks of life and are of all ages. A selection process is undergone and they are trained to the highest standard in a six-week training programme. Thereafter, they undergo a six-month probationary period with a mentor. Hamilton has 77 volunteers running its entire service, and no full-time employees. The Hamilton office does not operate 24 hours a day, but the national Samaritans service never sleeps. It provides support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which would not be possible without the dedication of its volunteers.
In 2010, it was estimated that volunteers contributed approximately 300,000 hours of their time. If the same service had been provided by paid staff, it would have cost £3 million. The stark truth is that, in human terms, the volunteers’ contribution is immeasurable.
When the Samaritans are mentioned, the first thing with which they are usually associated is a listening service, but the volunteers also provide valuable services to their local communities. For example, the Samaritans’ local community outreach teams provide emotional support through their stands at festivals and other events, and they work to support young people in local schools. Samaritans also work in prisons by operating a listener scheme in which they train prisoners to become listeners, who then provide a confidential listening service to other inmates.
In addition, the Samaritans have links with a number of organisations that work with farmers, including Farm Crisis Network and the Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution. As a result of poor weather in rural locations and harvest commitments, all of which can leave people isolated, farmers have been identified as a particularly at-risk group, so as well as working with partners, the Samaritans travel to rural shows that farmers attend to take part in exhibitions. Furthermore, increases in feed prices and low milk prices have added to the financial pressures that are being felt by the farming community. Significantly, the number of calls to the Samaritans helpline about financial worries has doubled since the financial crisis and the onset of the recession.
Nationally, the Samaritans campaign on a number of issues, particularly suicide. Around 800 suicides are committed each year in Scotland, and the Samaritans play a key role in the delivery of choose life, which is Scotland’s national strategy for the prevention of suicide. They also provide guidelines for the media on the reporting and portrayal of suicide, and work closely with Google and Facebook to maintain an online presence. In addition, they have been working in partnership with Network Rail to reduce the number of suicides on railways by 20 per cent during the next five years.
What does the future hold for the Samaritans in Hamilton and throughout Scotland? The next challenge for the Hamilton branch is the aim to move from Selkirk Place to new premises that will accommodate callers and volunteers who have disabilities. The present premises were built in 1874 and extended in 1990 to accommodate a training room. However, given the substantial amount of maintenance and overheads necessary for the building, and following consultation with the volunteers, the decision has been made to sell. To achieve that objective, a major fundraising effort will be required.
More generally, the most immediate challenge for all Samaritans comes during the festive season. This can be a very difficult time for many people. Consequently, the Samaritans estimate that, across the United Kingdom and Ireland, 193,000 people will contact them this Christmas.
Samaritans are a special group of people who selflessly give their time to provide a life-saving service. Unlike other emergency service workers, they are not highly visible. Despite that, the service that they provide is no less vital. In effect, the Samaritans are the fourth emergency service.
I am therefore very pleased and consider it to be entirely fitting that today, in the Scottish Parliament, we recognise and pay tribute to that extraordinary group of people who are the volunteers of a very special service. I congratulate Hamilton Samaritans on their 40th anniversary and wish all Samaritans well during the forthcoming festive period when they will be very busy for different reasons than the rest of us. This self-funding charity is truly understated and it deserves our thanks and support for the work that it does now and will continue to do in the future.
18:15
I thank Margaret Mitchell for bringing the debate to the chamber. The vision and the purpose behind the Samaritans are enduring. They aim to ensure that, with some listening and empathy, fewer people in society will choose to take their own life.
As Margaret Mitchell said, the Samaritans are largely a voluntary organisation in Lanarkshire, where the service is provided by more than 70 volunteers and where there are no full-time staff. That is remarkable given the nature of the service that is provided and the training that the organisation puts its volunteers through.
Being able to listen to what someone who is in distress is saying—and not saying—is an invaluable skill in any walk of life. It takes particular mental strength and courage to empathise with people who are going through an experience that many of us could barely begin to imagine and to do so in a fair-minded and non-judgmental way. We should certainly mark and celebrate today the fact that people in our community are willing to give up their time for others and face such demands.
Figures show that the suicide rate has reduced slightly since 2000, but there were still 772 suicides last year, when the rate for men was three times that for women. Ten years after the launch of the choose life initiative, suicide is still most common among young to middle-aged men. In my experience, I can think of three awful, heartbreaking cases of suicide. Each case involved a young man whose best years were still ahead of him. Each of those young men had much to live for, even if they could not see it.
The Government’s thinking and the thinking of the Samaritans and other voluntary organisations are still aligned in accepting that such deaths can be prevented, if only people realise that they are not alone. We must encourage people to talk about their thoughts and feelings more often and not just when they reach the stage of contemplating suicide.
That is a challenge. In one sense, that is a cultural change for us. We are a warm and welcoming nation, but we are not necessarily in the habit of talking about ourselves, our vulnerabilities and our health. That is why impartial services that can listen and advise—not just the Samaritans, but other services such as Breathing Space and a range of advocacy, advice and support groups—are vital.
I note from the motion that the Lanarkshire branch assists people through email and SMS text messaging, as well as through more traditional forms of communication. That suggests that the service is adaptable and open to change, although the core principles and the central mission behind the Samaritans have always remained consistent.
When the choose life programme was launched, the Scottish Executive embraced new thinking and decided that a suicide prevention strategy should not work in isolation but be based on promoting public health and mental wellbeing, with the active involvement of key partners. We as a society still face a challenge in reducing the suicide rate, but I maintain that the decision to approach the issue as a public health matter was right. However, we could look again at how funding is distributed to voluntary sector partners and, if we are to support fully the crucial life-saving work of organisations such as the Samaritans, we could do more to improve engagement between the statutory sector and the voluntary sector.
I hope that, in 40 years, we as a society have developed a better understanding of suicide prevention that makes us more open and can inform public policy. Throughout that period, there has always been a place for the Samaritans and their vital work. I am happy to join other members in congratulating them on their service to people in Lanarkshire and across Scotland.
18:19
I commend my colleague Margaret Mitchell for bringing this debate to the chamber. As she said, it is a timely debate. I, too, welcome Nancy and Christine to the gallery. They gave us a warm welcome in their place, and we hope that they have had a warm welcome here today.
A 40th birthday is a significant stage in a person’s life. They say life begins at 40—I am still waiting for 40, so I am not sure about that—but, for some people, getting to 40, or just living life, is a daily struggle. It is that struggle that the Samaritans help people with.
Like Margaret Mitchell and a number of other colleagues, I was delighted to be able to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Samaritans of Hamilton on 3 November. There was an open day to raise awareness of the services that are provided and the work that is done by the volunteers, and we got some lovely cake.
At the party, which was attended by members of the public, politicians and partner organisations, we were able to gain an insight into the work of the Samaritans. We met volunteers, past and present, and it was interesting to hear their stories of how they got involved. We tend to forget that these are people who are giving up their own time, and are putting all their heart into the work. We were treated to a guided tour of the building, which some of us know quite well now, and saw the services that are delivered. It was interesting to see the different stations from which the various services are delivered, which enables the different aspects to be separated out.
Like others, I was particularly struck by the Shotts prison service. In addition to groups of volunteers visiting Shotts, selected prisoners are trained as listeners in an effort to meet the emotional needs of fellow prisoners and so reduce tension and the suicide rate. I believe that there is also a process whereby prisoners who are released are given a contact to help them cope with the challenges of getting out of prison and settling back into life outside.
I was informed of a service for people leaving hospital. They can sign up for a call-back service to ensure that they are coping with discharge and that they have the services they need to cope with being outside the protective hospital environment. That is a particularly helpful service for people who have mental health issues or who have attempted suicide.
As we have heard, the Samaritans work in secondary schools throughout North and South Lanarkshire as part of the choose life project, and give talks on self-harming and emotional health. That is a new service that is being developed every day. I think that some young people are involved in the project in order to ensure that the message is absolutely right. That message is relevant today, as we can see from the ChildLine report “Saying the Unsayable”, which says that the number of children getting in touch because they may be suicidal has risen by almost 40 per cent. That is a huge number.
Elaine Chalmers, the head of ChildLine in Scotland, said today:
“The pressures facing children and young people, particularly girls, are increasing at such a rate some see these drastic measures as the only answer. Boys are suffering but they are less likely to seek help and we urge them to do so. No matter how bad things seem, it can help to talk to someone.”
Margaret McCulloch talked about boys committing suicide. The numbers in Lanarkshire are pretty high, but the work that is being done by the Samaritans is helping to bring them down. Young men do not talk to people the way that girls do and, hopefully, having an anonymous person to speak to on the phone or to send a text message to is enough to help them when they are struggling.
To young people who are struggling, I say, “Please just pick up a phone and call Samaritans or ChildLine.” A report by the Samaritans, called “Taking the lead to reduce suicide”, works alongside the ChildLine report to consider how people get to the stage in their life where they are completely at the end of their tether, and gives them ideas about how to move on.
The Samaritans volunteers provide a free, safe and confidential service for people to discuss their problems by phone, text or email. They reach out and work with schools, colleges and universities, workplaces, health and welfare services, homeless shelters, prisons and other charities. As we have heard, it could not be easier to contact the Samaritans.
Over the past 40 years, as we have heard, Selkirk Place has been an excellent home for numerous volunteers who have ensured that the people of Lanarkshire have received a service to be proud of. However, there is now a need to move to a new home, which I hope will continue to be in Hamilton.
I wish Hamilton Samaritans well in the hunt for a new home and offer my support to the volunteers in all the work that they do. More important, I want to thank all the people who have made and continue to make this service the vital service that it is today.
18:25
I will start, like others, by congratulating Margaret Mitchell on securing this important debate. I apologise that I was unable to make the Samaritans party but, when I knew that the debate was taking place, I contacted a friend who is a Samaritan volunteer to talk about some of the general issues.
For obvious reasons, Samaritans volunteers do not speak specifically about the work that they do, so they tend to be unsung heroes. It is consequently easy to forget the vital part that they play in society. Their work can quite often mean the difference—literally—between life and death. Therefore, the chance to commend the work of the Samaritans in Lanarkshire and right across Scotland is extremely welcome.
The Samaritans were started in 1953 by Chad Varah, who was a young vicar in London. Throughout his time in different parishes, Chad witnessed the struggles that people experienced. He made particular reference to one example of a parishioner who took her own life—this particularly struck me. The parishioner was a young girl of 14 years of age and she had started her menstrual period. She did not know what was happening to her—she had no one to speak to—and she feared that she had a disease. Chad felt that that tragic loss of a young life could have been prevented if only she had had someone to talk to.
Chad Varah was later inspired to set up a phone line and a face-to-face service and, over time, he was amazed by the number of people who wanted to speak with strangers about their problems. Although Chad was a vicar, I emphasise that the Samaritans are not religiously affiliated. Although volunteers can listen, they cannot advise and therefore it is imperative that there are services in place to back up the work of the Samaritans. It is therefore concerning that, in this time of austerity, some of those services are under threat.
Many of those who contact the Samaritans suffer from emotional distress and mental ill health. I am told that addicts, including drug, alcohol and gambling addicts, make up a large percentage of those who contact the charity.
As Margaret Mitchell mentioned, the current economic downturn is no doubt having a detrimental impact on mental health and wellbeing and we know that high unemployment rates have a bearing on suicide rates. That is the kind of pressure that can drive people to consider suicide. In addition to that, I want to mention companies such as Wonga and QuickQuid, because such companies are taking advantage of people’s vulnerabilities. They are charging up to 4,000 per cent interest rates per year on payday loans. Other companies are offering access to online bingo services, which is becoming a huge problem in society—people are developing gambling addictions easily because of it.
Unfortunately, such issues drive people into such debt that suicide may seem to be the only way out. Those are some of the people who need the care, support and listening ear that the Samaritans give them. As Margaret Mitchell said, the Samaritans’ work can only increase at the moment because of the austerity and the economic situation that we are in.
Of course, the Samaritans are not the only charity to carry out such work. Christina McKelvie mentioned that ChildLine released figures today that demonstrate a rise in 13 to 16-year-olds contacting ChildLine about self-harm. Websites that glorify self-harm were thought to be part of the reason for that rise. I think that similar trends will also be seen by the Samaritans.
In Lanarkshire, we have the only health board area in which suicide rates have consistently risen while rates in all other health board areas have come down. That is a worrying exception to the national trend. Although those who are considering suicide are not the only callers to the Samaritans—such calls make up about 20 per cent of the total calls—it is nonetheless essential that we have services such as the Samaritans in areas such as Lanarkshire to help people who are feeling suicidal and point them in the direction of professional help and services.
Over the past 40 years, since the Samaritans opened in Lanarkshire, thousands upon thousands of people in my constituency will have benefited from the service, which is literally lifesaving. I wish the Lanarkshire Samaritans a happy 40th anniversary and once again commend my colleague Margaret Mitchell on securing the debate.
18:29
I, too, thank my colleague Margaret Mitchell for giving us the opportunity to put on record the excellent work that is being carried out by volunteers at the Samaritans in Hamilton, which is replicated throughout Scotland. It is also worth mentioning the choose life strategy, which the previous Liberal-Labour Scottish Executive set up. Although there is still more work to do, we cannot have a debate on the topic without considering the public money and commitment that have been provided both previously and under the current Scottish Government.
My perception of the Samaritans service was that it was uniquely for people who are at risk of taking their own life, although I know from a friend who is a volunteer that conversations cover a much wider spectrum, from debt, sexuality, bullying and family issues to addictions, as Elaine Smith mentioned.
I particularly commend the Samaritans website. In particular, I found a page with the heading “Worried about someone?” There are times when we know that someone may need support, but opening a conversation is difficult. It is also difficult to understand when someone may be struggling to cope. The list of signs of when someone may need support is helpful, as is the advice on the website on “How to start a difficult conversation”. Possibly all of us could benefit from that. I know that many parents, families and friends would welcome advice on how to engage in conversations without being seen to be putting pressure on people. There are many lessons to be learned from what the Samaritans do. In my minimal research for the debate, I learned that the Samaritans are not only for people who are at risk of suicide but give wonderful advice that could be beneficial to a wide range of people, including people who are at risk of taking their life and people who are potentially at risk of doing so.
As Margaret Mitchell said, the work in partnership with Network Rail is tremendous. That can be seen from the “Men and suicide: Why it’s a social issue” publication. As Margaret McCulloch said, male suicide rates remain three times higher than female rates. I tended to think that the male suicide rate was highest among 15 to 24-year-olds, but the rate for 35 to 44-year-olds is twice as high. I was surprised by that. The publication that I mentioned says that there is a growing risk to men in middle age as opposed to younger men.
I also understood that the Samaritans service was only or mainly a telephone helpline. I hope that members will forgive me for having looked up Samaritans services in the Highlands. I noted that the Western Isles Samaritans are open to receive callers at the door for face-to-face meetings on two days every week. I did not realise that that happened.
I welcome the new home for the Western Isles branch. There are new, purpose-built premises in Stornoway, thanks to the generous support of the local community, NHS Western Isles, the choose life initiative, the council, Gannochy Trust, the Russell Trust, PF Charitable Trust and Garfield Weston Foundation, as well as donations from local councillors and fundraising by staff at the Stornoway Gazette, who fully supported the campaign. The Western Isles branch is the smallest in the UK, and it now owns its own property after 18 years in rented premises. I welcome its on-going commitment to suicide survivors with monthly support group meetings. Therefore, there are not only phone calls to the Samaritans; there is longer-term support and the opportunity to share concerns with others who understand.
I understand that Oban has been identified by the Samaritans as a place in which their support is needed, given its remote rural location, isolation and current lack of access to services. There is no physical branch of the Samaritans within 90 miles of the Argyll area. I hope that the pilot work that is being done by the Samaritans in Oban and the surrounding area will result in a Samaritans service being set up to offer the confidential and non-judgmental support that is available elsewhere in Scotland. I will certainly do all that I can to support the setting up of that service.
18:34
As other members have done, I congratulate Margaret Mitchell on securing the debate, which has been helpful in highlighting the excellent work that the Samaritans have undertaken nationally in Scotland since the 1950s and the celebrations of 40 years of the Samaritans’ activity in the Lanarkshire area.
As all members in the chamber do, I recognise the importance of the work that the Samaritans undertake locally in Lanarkshire and nationally across the country to help people who may be going through difficult times. I know that the public, too, sees the Samaritans as a highly valuable service. To a large extent, the Samaritans has a fairly unique position in society in that it is an organisation that has a lot of public trust because of the role that it fulfils.
In Lanarkshire, the Samaritans have 80 trained volunteers who answer some 18,000 calls for help each year. The volunteers offer support to individuals who are feeling low or are struggling. As others have done, I offer my warm welcome to the volunteers, Nancy and Christine, in the gallery. The Lanarkshire branch also works closely with our choose life team. That close partnership working has been successful in raising local awareness of a range of programmes around suicide prevention.
The Government has provided core grant funding to the Samaritans at national level for some years. In addition, we have provided one-off grant funding to it over the past couple of years to support some early work on developing a new telephony system, which will—when completed—ensure that people who call the Samaritans can speak to someone, even at busy times, through the system redirecting them to a free call in another establishment.
The funding has also provided support for work with Citizens Advice Scotland on suicide risk awareness, which is designed to help bureau staff to identify and support clients who may be at risk of suicide and to help bureau managers to support their advisers in handling such distressing contacts. That work with Citizens Advice Scotland and the work that the Samaritans does in the prisons and elsewhere shows the variety of work that the organisation undertakes over and above the call service that it provides.
I want to look more widely at some of the suicide prevention work that has been taking place in Scotland, and to which several members have referred. In recent years, there has been an overall downward trend in suicide rates—a decrease of just under 17 per cent. That reflects the fact that we have largely met the planned reduction that was set out in the choose life strategy.
However, as Elaine Smith and others have highlighted, there is much more that we need to do to reduce the number of suicides in Scotland. We know that periods of economic difficulty cause difficulties in that regard. There is also emerging evidence that highlights that some of the factors that may contribute to a person’s being vulnerable to committing suicide are closely associated with factors that contribute to health inequalities in Scotland, which means that we must take a much more holistic approach to how we deal with such issues.
Alongside the choose life programme, NHS Health Scotland has recently launched a new campaign called reading between the lines. Its purpose is to help people to know what they should do for someone they know who is exhibiting risk signs of committing suicide, and to help them to feel confident about assisting those who are at risk.
Another key part of the choose life strategy was to improve training in the national health service, so that our front-line staff would be more aware of suicide risk and more able to assess patients effectively. The data from 2010 show that at least 50 per cent of front-line NHS staff have been educated and trained in the use of suicide assessment tools and in suicide prevention. NHS boards continue to provide such training.
In August this year, I published the Scottish Government’s “Mental Health Strategy for Scotland: 2012-2015”, which sets out a programme for the next three to five years on how we intend to improve mental health and wellbeing and mental health services. There are several elements of the strategy that are relevant to reduction of suicide, such as effective work with families and carers and increased support for self-management and self-help approaches.
We will undertake a consultation early in the new year on how we can take forward our new suicide and self-harm prevention strategy. The consultation will involve a public engagement programme. We intend to publish the strategy next summer and the working group that has been established to take forward the work includes a representative from the Samaritans. I have no doubt that we can make much progress. We need to ensure that all services are working in a co-ordinated fashion to achieve that.
Prevention of suicide remains a significant challenge, but the progress that we have made in recent years gives me great encouragement. We have achieved a considerable amount, but there is certainly more that we can do, and that is the intention behind the new strategy.
I have no doubt that the Samaritans will continue to play a valuable role in Scottish society, by helping to support people who experience distress. I congratulate Lanarkshire Samaritans again on reaching its 40th anniversary and I wish the organisation the very best for the coming 40 years.
Meeting closed at 18:42.