to think killing off the local branch structure will kill off the Samaritans

Working (volunteering) from home would cut out the background noise of other calls.

I would have thought they all wore noise cancelling headsets, which would solve that issue.

I'm clearly out of touch about CEO salaries. Nearly all of my friends are retired though, so I have no idea.

The Samaritans rely on volunteers and their f the changes cause a significant reduction in volunteers it will struggle. Volunteers have no contract they can just walk away and will - I used to volunteer (not the Samaritans ) and due to policy changes walked away. Organisations which rely heavily on volunteers need to consider the impact of changes

Some people will leave, some will work from home and others will move to one of the hubs. But the change will also attract people who are able to work from home or would rather have a bigger hub - some people really don’t want to be part of a small centre, and having resources centralised will help have consistency of recruitment and training, and consistency of culture. There are good reasons for the change.

I never said I wasn’t grateful to people giving up their free time. I could give up my free time this evening to attend broken down cars, but as I’m not a mechanic it would be pointless.

Working (volunteering) from home would cut out the background noise of other calls.

I suppose there is a safeguarding risk in that volunteers taking calls from their own homes might be wrong ‘uns who have slipped through the net.

Is there any process in place where callers could anonymously share their experience of contact with Samaritans? This is life or death - the suicide rate is at a 25-year high and Samaritans have replaced the NHS crisis lines. NHS advice for people who are actively suicidal was to call 999 or attend A&E. In the year 2024/25 it changed to Samaritans being the first port of call. Suicidal people attending A&E comprise 3-5% of all A&E attendees, so this is also a NHS problem. It’s all very well stressed NHS nurses shouting at people who have self-harmed that they’re timewasters/attention seeking and that there are cancer patients or people who have been in traffic accidents, but if it puts people off attending A&E and they go on to complete suicide, they are still dead. As suicide is the main cause of death in some age groups, would it not make sense for the NHS to provide emergency support?

The reality is they will lose people for whom the new structure doesn’t work for whatever reason, that in itself isn’t a reason to keep things the same. It’s an expensive, inefficient model for such a large service and the board will have considered that they’ll lose people but they need to restructure.

They’ve been needing to change for the last 20 years, but presumably have put it off because of their volunteer structure but it’s time now.

I don’t think £110k is a lot for a COO of a major organisation. It is obviously a decision borne of necessity but agree working from home sounds really difficult. Not everyone has space or is willing to take really difficult calls in their own safe space.

It isn’t an option currently. The only people that are on live calls from home are the hub of people that listen into other volunteers taking calls.

It hasn’t become a mainstream or realistic proposition as yet. But with software, technology, training etc, I think it’s the way forward.

How can you say what would work for "most" volunteers. You talk and represent your one close volunteer, your daughter.

Your daughter really does need to give her feedback to the organisation.

I completely agree, OP. Unless the volunteers experience their role as fully human - supported, embedded in community, etc - it feels unlikely that they could offer a fully human service. They will just be like any other call centre worker, dehumanised, robotic, alienated. And speaking to them on the phone will be more and more frustrating, like trying to get someone to actually help you with your broadband instead of just operating a script.

To be honest, I'm one of those people who has contacted Samaritans from time to time and found them very unhelpful (though of course I understand that for others they can be a genuine help). I think that if I was in any doubt about whether to call them now, this development would seal the deal for me: No more Samaritans.

I know someone who has begun working in a paid role on a telephone service that seems to be a kind of mental health version of the NHS 111 service. He works from home and is quite poorly paid. This new version of Samaritans seems just like that, tbh.

Call centre support is the epitome of a soulless society.

Samaritans has been fighting a losing battle for years, because the current system is unsustainable and ridiculously expensive. Far too many buildings housing tiny numbers of volunteers.
The service needs to be run for the benefit of the callers, not what works best for the volunteers. Something created in the 1950s no longer works in the 2020s, and many volunteers acknowledge that.

They also need to stop expecting volunteers to do all the additional tasks of management, recruitment selection and training - these take up a huge amount of time and, for some volunteers, it becomes like having a second full- time job.
So to have paid staff managing larger numbers of volunteers makes sense, and has been discussed within the service over the last 20 years.

But I agree that the working from home idea won't work, for reasons of confidentiality and also to protect callers from the (rare) instances of rogue volunteers.

The problem with small centres and volunteers working around their availability is that it won’t match the times when call levels are highest. It would be interesting to see how many calls go unanswered for la k of resource. I know for ChildLine at one point it was 40%.

Cost is only one of many factors, response rates, ease of recruiting volunteers, consistency of service will all come into it. Change is always hard though so I do sympathise. The COO salary is a drop in the ocean in terms of cost and commensurate with running such a large organisation.

Volunteers at Samaritans, can, and should claim their travel expenses back. I’m at a branch in Hampshire, and the Leadership team actively encourage it.

That's not an enormous salary for a reasonably large organization. Salaries must be competitive to attract the talent.
And at the end of the day, the working structure must be best for the organization and it's aims, rather than what might suit your daughter specifically. A shame for her perhaps, but I wouldn't assume it won't work. Lots of people do like to work from home.

Why do people come out with crap like this?

The CEO of a huge charity wouldn't be picking up a shift in Tesco Sheffield if they weren't in that job.

You have to compare like for like. Yes MN "£100K isn't that much" is a cliche at this point but IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE you have to put it in context.

Nobody is arguing that it isn't
OBJECTIVELY a high salary but for CEOs of large organisations it isn't.

Samaritans have over 200 branches. If you slashed the CEOs salary in half and divided it among them that would be £275 extra a year. I doubt that would be the different between being open and shut.

My local branch is in a run down terraced house in a socially deprived town and even then rent for an equivalent size (I don't know if they own it or rent it) would be nearly £1000 a month - with maintenance, bills, etc you're probably talking at least £20k every year. Times that by 200 branches and its probably costing a fortune to run all of them. I know some might not pay rent (if a building was donated for example) but other places will pay a lot more, and all will have bills and maintenance costs.

On the face of it it really doesnt sound great but I doubt they are doing it for shits and giggles. I do think they should have tried it in one region first though rather than going all in - once they lose those properties/volunteers it will be hard to get them back.

I genuinely understand that and would be grateful if it wasn’t so scripted.

I think you underestimate how many people would prefer to volunteer from home. As with wfh, there will always be people who would rather be in an office but the majority don't want the commute.

Also £110k is a standard salary for the level of responsibility and seniority of the post. How much do you think would be reasonable?

I understand that people are giving up their time, but I think the “listening” model needs an overhaul. AI bots could stay silent for 10 minutes, say “that sounds difficult” and after another 10 minutes say “I’m going to let you go now” - that would cut costs. Again, I understand that volunteers give up their time but I don’t know how useful it is - the TrustPilot reviews are as bad as they are for SHOUT, which does use bots.

No, I live in a poor, rural area. However, 110k for a coo is not enormous anywhere.