Samaritans welcome £1,000 donation

A READING charity has received a welcome boost to its finances after welcoming a donation of £1,000.

The Reading Samaritans were granted the funds by the John Sykes Foundation as part of its Covid-19 Relief Fund initiative.

The charity is a recognised branch of the national Samaritans charity and offers support to those experiencing distress or despair, including those who may be at risk of suicide.

They provide a range of services including a confidential telephone and email service, and face-to-face support.

The grant of £1,000 will be used to support continuous development for existing volunteers by hosting several training sessions featuring external speakers

Elizabeth Hayes, trustee and branch coordinator at Reading Samaritans, said: “Continuous development is an important part of training, and helps volunteers to remain up to date with best practice.

“We have been unable to hold inperson training during the pandemic but with this grant we plan to hold sessions on several topics of concern to many of our callers.

“These topics will include self-harm, bereavement and trauma to be held off site at larger venues to enable social distancing.”

The charity currently has 97 volunteers with more undergoing initial training through the first half of this year.

Prior to the pandemic, the Reading Samaritans typically delivered 12 continuous development sessions each year.

However, due to social distancing, and the need to focus on delivering basic training, no in-person sessions have taken place.

All volunteers are expected to complete at least one ongoing training session, provided by the branch, which is monitored to ensure all fulfil this requirement.

Ms Hayes says delivering the training is crucial to retaining volunteers for the long term.

She said: “Providing engaging and relevant ongoing training is an important part of volunteer retention - we have had a decrease in overall volunteer numbers during the pandemic as we have not been able to replace volunteers due to decreased training capacity for new recruits.

“It is therefore essential that we provide good quality training, to ensure we can maintain capacity within the branch to deliver our services within the local community”.

Following the presentation of the cheque John Sykes, founder and chair of trustees at the John Sykes Foundation, said: “During these very difficult times the John Sykes Foundation has been aware of the increased needs of local charities due to the increased workload combined with a lack of funding from their usual sources.

“We are delighted to present a cheque for £1,000 to Reading Samaritans to help them support people in need across the town and deliver the relevant training to the volunteers.”

For more information on Reading Samaritans, visit: samaritans.org