Citation

Peters J. Psychiatr. Danub. 2006; 18(Suppl 1): 108-109.

Affiliation

Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, 3 St Nicholas Close, Austrey, CV9 3EQ Atherstone, UK. (john@johnpeters.freeserve.co.uk)

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16964054

Abstract

Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS) have operated a National Helpline since 2000. It is hoped that this paper describing the working of the Helpline may help other countries should they wish to establish a similar service. SOBS is a small registered charity based on the philosophy of self-support and not counselling and volunteers are overwhelmingly those who have themselves been bereaved by suicide. The Helpline is manned by such volunteers who divert the Helpline to their own homes and takes calls from all parts of the U.K. from 9a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. This paper will describe how we recruit, train and support volunteers. The service has been very well received on an anecdotal basis and a start has been made to evaluate this service. The first exercise has been to categorise the types of callers and who they have lost. A sample of approximately 20% of the calls received from Survivors in 2005 showed that 87.3% were from women and 12.7% were from men. The calls related to the deaths of 207 men and 70 women. The paper analyses the calls in further detail and attempts are made to draw conclusions from the data and suggest that the model could be used in other countries.

Language: en