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The Samaritans Email Service

By Lasa Information Systems Team

The Samaritans' phone service for people feeling depressed and suicidal is widely known, and the need for the service is clear - a suicide takes place every 79 minutes in the UK and Ireland. Now the organisation is providing a well-used email service, which is reaching some of those people who are reluctant to use the phone. The service launched in 1999 also throws up interesting questions about how people use web and email services - the Samaritans' experience goes against many of the emerging stereotypes of how people use these technologies.

In 1999, the Samaritans received 25,000 email contacts. It's a small number compared to the total 3.7 million phone calls they took in England in the same period. In 2004 the number of email contacts had risen to 100,000.

What's particularly interesting is the type of people who use the service. Suicide is now the second biggest killer of men between 15 and 24. Men can find it difficult to discuss their feelings - as a 19-year-old comments in a Samaritans report, "I won't talk about a lot of things close to my heart with friends. I don't tend to talk about it - most boys wouldn't. Boys tend to want to be in a strong position."

However, more men use the email service than contact Samaritans by phone, and more young people do so - the new service is crucial in reaching this important group. Project Officer Judy Claybourne comments that, "Ideally, we would like to reach more young men via email as the suicide rate is so high, and men are less likely to use telephone helplines than women."

At the moment, however, they are not actively publicising their service to young men; Judy explains that "we have to be careful to manage demand, so we are not actively promoting email, except on our website."

Opening up by email

The Samaritans believe that people find it easier to express their feelings using email than they do on the phone - email contacts are three times more likely to mention suicidal thoughts than phone callers. It's not entirely clear what is happening, but it seems that people find the anonymity of the medium helpful. I mentioned that this goes completely against the emerging consensus about how people use email and the web, the "click-call-visit" scenario. According to this, people "click" on a web page for basic factual information, "call" on the phone for something more complicated, and prefer to "visit" and talk face-to-face about complex, important or sensitive issues. Judy comments that "I think it is the reverse for us - email is easiest for callers to express their feelings, telephone next and face-to-face is hardest."

Most countries don't have a similar service to the Samaritans, and the international nature of the web means that they receive a number of international enquiries. This throws up issues - the law about suicide varies from country to country, as do many other details about people's situations. There is a lesson here for other agencies. Most of us are used to providing a service to a certain geographical area, one county or one city perhaps. Those limits don't apply on the web. People from different parts of Britain - perhaps where provision of a particular service is poor - can ignore geographical boundaries. An agency may not have the resources to meet their demands - and, again, may not have the necessary information when services available, like Housing Benefit, can vary from place to place.

The Samaritans use special software to deal with email contacts, which was developed by a volunteer who deals with email contacts himself, and so has a clear understanding of the needs of the service. People often expect an instant response from email, and I wondered if this was their experience. Judy explained: "We haven't as yet found that to be a problem. Our commitment is to respond in 24 hours."

Starting from their Basic Values

Whatever the differences from work on the phone, the Samaritans are clear that email is simply another medium for doing the same work as before, with their original values. This is reflected in the importance they attach to confidentiality, and the different ways of using email to maintain it. The first option is for people to send an email to the organisation at jo@samaritans.org - the software does allow volunteers to see the caller's return address, and people who choose to contact them in this way are made aware of this. A second option is for a caller to create an anonymous web mail address, using a site like Hotmail or Yahoo, and use this when they contact Samaritans. This ensures that only they can access their mail, even if they share a computer with someone else.

Training is required before a local Samaritans organisation begins responding to email enquiries: the organisation comment that "We do not let Branches just start without a number of training sessions, as they do need to prepare for responding in this medium." But the technology, they say, "is almost the least important aspect" of the training. Instead, it's a matter of thinking through how to apply in a new medium the principles and practices which have been built up in forty-five years of answering the phone.

The Samaritans' experience is fascinating and hugely positive. They have engaged with new technology, but they are firmly in control - using it to develop their service, while sticking to their core values and practices. Perhaps what is most striking is the creativity in their use of IT. No-one would have thought back in the early 1990's that email, a system developed so academics could send computerised messages to each other, could be used to save lives.