Services

Befriending Hotline

The Samaritans provides a free and confidential Hotline staffed by caring, trained volunteers available seven days a week from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM. This service provides unprejudiced and nonjudgmental support to those who are alone, depressed or in crisis. Anyone can find a caring empathetic ear at The Samaritans.

Would you like someone to:

• Listen to you quietly, allowing you the right to be yourself?
• Try to comprehend what you are saying, even though friends and family think you are not making much sense?
• rasp your point of view, even if it goes against personal convictions?
• Allow you the dignity of making your own decisions, even if they disagree with them?

If you answered YES to any of the above, please consider calling.

Kare Calls

For maoy older people, elder life is a time of fulfillment and satisfaction with life's accomplishments. Forsome older adults, however, later life is a time of physical pain, psychological distress, or dissatisfaction with present and perhaps, past aspects of life. Some often feel hopeless about making changes to improve their lives.

One of the most frequent companions of the elderly is an irreversible progression of losses. Often, work is gone, family and friends have moved away or have died and these losses can result in a sense of isolation and powerlessness. Even the past is lost if memory fades. Painful illness may replace physical well-being. Financial security becomes a thing of the past as income falls behind rising health and living costs and loss of independence is a haunting fear. If you or a loved one is over 55 and experiencing similar distress you may benefit from weekly KARE calls.

What are KARE calls?

• Weekly telephone calls to check on a person’s well-being.
• To affirm that someone does care by sharing a few minutes in friendly conversations.
• To provide next day follow- up call if requested.

Who Makes Kare Calls and Answers the Hotline?

Samaritans: caring, deeply committed, and trained volunteers who wish to be of service to others.

If you are interested in possibly receiving a weekly KARE Call, would like more information or have questions, please contact us.

Safe Place

• Safe Place is a group of caring people who have experienced, and are still experiencing, the pain of a suicide.
• Safe Place provides an atmosphere of acceptance for exploring all the negative feelings not understood by others.
• Safe Place offers a chance to share helpful resources, and to give and get support through the long grief process.
• Safe Place gives you an opportunity to look at your future with a little more hope.

IF YOU HAVE LOST A FAMILY MEMBER OR FRIEND THROUGH SUICIDE...

• you may find that even close friends can’t talk about the death, perhaps out of fear of upsetting you...
• you may wonder if you will ever be able to accept life fully and joyfully again...
• you may be overtaken by intense anger, and worry about the rest of the family falling apart...
• you may find that the pain and grieving do not stop at will, in spite of your determined efforts...

BUT YOU ARE NOT ALONE...

A Safe Place to talk... or to be silent... to listen... to grieve... to share...

A Safe Place to be accepted... to be understood...
and to offer the acceptance and understanding that someone else may need...

The Samaritans of Fall River & New Bedford
State Road (Route 6)
Westport, MA 02790
Telephone: 508-673-3777
1st and 3rd Wednesday of Each Month

Click here for more information!