Costa Blanca Samaritans: Feeling Suicidal or Depressed in Spain?

In today’s expat interview with people who have moved to Spain we talk to Val Parker principally about her work with the Costa Blanca Samaritans and the issues people face in Spain.

Are you living in Spain and feeling suicidal or depressed, here are options in order to find the help you need if you are suffering any mental health issues.

This is a great interview highlighting a really important organisation. The Costa Blanca Samaritans are of course based on the Costa Blanca but they take calls from people in need of help from all over Spain.

I’ve never asked this before, but if you can help promote this article it would be appreciated as I believe this is a very important cause. How? Place a link to this article on the web somewhere: on your blog, as a blog comment, website, social bookmark, Facebook, Twitter or on a forum. Try linking with the words ‘Costa Blanca Samaritans’ if you can, rather than saying ‘click here’.

Val thanks for taking the time to talk to me, I guess first I want to know who you are and how you have come to live in Spain?

Well I moved to Spain eight years ago with my partner who was a golf professional and we came here to retire. It was the first time in my life I hadn’t worked and after some time I considered part-time work and that was when I saw the opening at Costa Blanca Samaritans. Obviously it was an English-speaking position and I was used to working with people my whole life, although more in a business environment.

This was a paid position or unpaid?

It was unpaid working as a listening volunteer. I went through the training which was very in depth and very structured. Obviously you have to be in a good place yourself, because in listening to other people’s troubles, you could become affected yourself if you were not in the right frame of mind and it could be too much to take on board.

I then became a trainer and I’ve now become the branch director. This involves many aspects from the physical running of the office to overseeing the volunteers.

Val, for anyone thinking they might like to contact you and help, what can you say, I mean how have you found it?

I’d actually say it is very enjoyable, maybe that isn’t quite the right word, perhaps satisfying sums it up best. You are helping people with their problems, which feels good of course and the people you work with are naturally like-minded people. No, it is really very satisfying.

Val, most people will be familiar with the name of the Samaritans but how did it start here in Spain?

We operate here in Spain as a stand-alone branch. It began because Steven Ashley, a psychotherapist saw a need for a support system here and he had previous worked as a Samaritan. Together with other like-minded people it took over three years to pass through the Spanish legal system because they didn’t understand exactly how or what we did. They thought we were promoting suicide! But finally we got the permission and are set up as a 100% not for profit organisation.

So when did the Costa Blanca Samaritans start and how is it set up?

Three years ago, we have two offices with plans for more. One is in Benissa, the other in Villamartin. We have a number – 902 88 35 35 – which is a national number accessible from anywhere in Spain.

With volunteers for the Samaritans there is no need for any previous experience whatsoever, so you don’t need to have been a counsellor or anything like that.

First there is a general chat, then an in-depth interview, then a group interview. At this stage people tend to realise if there is any issues that they are tender about and would have difficulty listening to someone else talking about it.

We have two volunteers on duty from 8pm to 12pm which is great because after a difficult call you have your colleague there to talk to. We are always looking to add people to our volunteer list because of course being Spain, people do tend to come and go more than most places.

Volunteers must commit to 2 shifts (8pm-12pm) once a month and either one Saturday or Sunday every two months.

We had a series of coffee mornings to promote the Samaritans in Spain and we found many people came along because they wanted to talk.

What can people call you about? Is any problem too trivial that they shouldn’t be ringing you?

People tend to naturally associate the Samaritans with calls from people considering suicide but we want to prevent people getting to that point. It can be absolutely anything from a mother who has had a very difficult day to people with marriage difficulties. What may not seem a problem to you can be a major problem to someone else. No problem is too small. Often people have a serie