President Carol Portas welcomed members old and new to Retford Ladies Probus on Wednesday 14th. She then introduced Evelyn Griffiths who gave members a superb insight into her work with the Samaritans. Evelyn is based at the Mansfield Centre, where she works four hour shifts alongside another colleague. As well as phone calls they also respond to texts, emails, written correspondence and personal visits to the centre. Volunteers also attend football matches and festivals. For the last five years they have had a partnership with Network Rail, where they teach employees to spot distressed behaviour patterns. This has resulted in a 16% drop in suicides.
There is a six-week training course for volunteers followed by six more weeks of mentoring. The ability to listen is the greatest skill needed, with intervention by the Samaritan often minimal. Evelyn explained that the most vulnerable age groups are men aged 15 to 30 and 45 to 60. The latter often experiencing redundancy and relationship breaks. Women tend to be more resilient because they have children to care for. Evelyn pointed out that they were only seeing a snapshot of people’s lives and it wasn’t always as bad as it seems. She gave an example of a lady who came in with a donation of £364.00, saying every time she didn’t need the Samaritans she put a pound in a box. The goal is to encourage a person to take control of their own destiny and ultimately prevent tragedy. There is now some funding available, much of it coming from their charity shop. May this essential work continue to flourish.
Retford Ladies Probus Club’s next meeting will be on Wednesday 11th April at Westhill Community Centre, at 10.00am for a 10.30am start, when Doug Bradbury will tell members about his experience as a farrier. All are welcome.