Re: [asa] Society Ignoring Serious Boy Problems

Hi, James,

The large volunter/paid staff ratio is explained by the fact that
large numbers of volunteers are needed to man the telephones 24/7. At
our branch (Oxford) we have between 110 and 125 active volunteers.
Each day there are five double-manned shifts (four at three and three
quarter hours and one night shift of nine hours with a three hour
break in the middle when the phones divert to another branch). So
there are 70 slots to fill every week. In practice we need over 100
volunteers to do this because many people can't do shifts during work
ours. The basic volunteer commitment is for one duty per week. On
top of that there is one shift "leader" for each shift who can be
contacted at home for supporting volunteers who are on duty (
sometimes emotional support is required after a particularly
distressing or abusive call). Not a single volunteer in our branch,
including the branch Director, is paid. There is a central general
office which has full-time paid staff.

As regards your question about witnessing; Samaritans, despite its
Biblically inspired name, is an entirely secular organisation. In
fact we are forbidden to discuss our own religious views with callers.
 (In fact we are forbidden to disclose any personal information - the
idea is to focus on the caller and provide a listening service).

It was founded by an Anglical vicar, Rev. Chad Varah in 1953 - and the
story might be of interest to those interested in psychology. Varah
intended to set up a listening service for the suicidal, and got
himself trained up as a counsellor to handle the job. He set himself
up in the crypt of St. Stephen Walbrooke's church in London, and got
folks from the congregation to help out by chatting with and making
coffee for the callers who were queued up to see Chad. However, he
made the interesting discovery that often when they got to see him
they had had much of their distress alleviated, simply by talking to
someone who was prepared to listen and not judge or give advice, but
simply to empathise. I think in essence he had discovered
independently the value of Karl Rogers' patient-centred psychotherapy.
 On discovering this, he saw the potential for a volunteer based
organisation.

There are some volunteers in my branch who are Christian, but equally
there are others who are atheist or agnostic in their views. The last
time I was on duty with one of the atheist volunteers; a lovely warm
woman, we had quite a chat between calls about science, religion etc.
Despite her atheism, she doesn't think much of Richard Dawkins, it
seems! It's quite good to chat with other volunteers about science,
religion etc, because as Samaritan volunteers, they instinctively
won't be confrontational like the Dawkins style of "new atheist", but
will tend to listen to you and do their best to understand your point
of view.

There are a few branches of the Samaritans in the USA; quite a big one
in Boston, I believe. However, the majority are in the UK - there are
202 branches.

I'd be interested to know your views as a psychologist of the value of
email as an emotional support system. Since we get loads of emails
from americans , I'm guessing that such a service doesn't exist in the
USA. It seems to me that people find it therapeutic to write down
about their troubles and feelings, and know that someone else is going
to read it in complete confidence, and respond.

Iain

On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 3:35 AM, James
Patterson<james000777@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> The ratio of volunteers to paid staff across the organisation is 236:1.
>> The national average ratio amongst other charities is estimated at 34:1.
>
> Impressive. I had no idea, never heard of the Samaritans as a group. Keep up
> the good work. Given the growing secularization of Europe, do you witness
> too, as a part of this service?
>
>
> At least in the USA, females attempt suicide quite a bit more frequently
> than males, and males complete suicide more often than males. This is due
> presumably to the more lethal and violent means that males use compared to
> females. Rate of depression higher in females. Males (presumably) more
> impulsive.
>
> James
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of Iain Strachan
> Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 2:02 PM
> To: James Patterson
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] Society Ignoring Serious Boy Problems
>
> James,
>
> You may be interested to compare the uk figures which you can get from
> the Samaritans:
>
> http://www.samaritans.org/PDF/SamaritansInfoResourcePack2008.pdf
>
> Tables 17 onwards give the relevant data.  It seems to bear out the
> observation that suicides are more prevalent among males  (11 per
> 100,000 in 2005) than females (3 per 100,000) for age 15-25 (UK and
> ROI).
>
> From what I've picked up as a volunteer at the Samaritans, I believe
> it's the case that though there are more suicides among males, that
> females are more prone to depression and mental health issues.
>
> The tables also show interestingly that suicide rates have declined
> significantly since 1995, from 17 per 100,000 (boys 15-25) in 1995.
>
> However, mental health support in the UK is absolutely abysmal, and
> many mentally ill people rely on the Samaritans, which is
> volunteer-led, because they can't get proper support from the local
> health authorities.  It is a sobering thought that a group of amateurs
> (admittedly ones who are carefully selected and highly trained) are a
> vital component of the mental health support in my country.
>
> Samaritans also offers and email support service
> (jo@samaritans.org.uk), which receives emails from all over the world.
>  Many of our email contacts are from the USA, so I would gather that
> the service we offer in this way (non-religious, completely
> confidential, and non-judgmental) is something that is quite unique.
>
> We are also now growing an SMS text support service, though I'd guess
> this would be restricted to UK.
>
> Anyway, I hope you find the information in the link to be useful.
>
> Iain
>
> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:27 PM, James
> Patterson<james000777@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> I can speak to this, it's what I do for a living. One of my main hats is
> as
>> an emergency psychiatrist. The suicide rate, whether in boys or girls,
>> starts being a problem in adolescents. However, this is just a symptom of
>> the cultural "avalanche" that has been the past 50 years.
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/04all.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/04all.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>> Suicide and homicide rates are often in the top three causes of deaths for
>> folks 10-45.
>>
>>
>>
>> The average patient that presents in my psychiatry crisis unit is from a
>> broken, non-nuclear family, has suffered some form of abuse or neglect,
>> abuses or is dependent on drugs or alcohol, has not completed their
>> education, is unemployed, has a significant history of violence and/or
> legal
>> problems, AND on top of that, may very well have a "true mental health"
>> issue, like major depression or bipolar disorder.
>>
>>
>>
>> The first report of major increases in mental health crises was from the
>> 80s. The APA's report here:
>>
>>
> http://archive.psych.org/edu/other_res/lib_archives/archives/tfr/tfr200201.p
> df
>>
>> is illuminating. It's 101 pages long - read page 5 for why there is a need
>> for a task force. This was published in 2002.
>>
>>
>>
>> I've been managing the Crisis Unit for the past 7 years, but we have stats
>> for the past 12 years. In that time, the population of our community has
>> increased 8%. The increase in our patient population has increased by >
>> 200%, and the majority of that is in the past 5 years. The slope of the
> line
>> is going up.the rate is increasing. There's not that many more
> people.people
>> are getting sicker.
>>
>>
>>
>> The APA report, on page 5, states that "Deinstitutionalization and later
>> efforts at cost containment including managed care have tended to place
> more
>> fragile patients in the community." While this is true,
>> deinstitutionalization ended in Louisiana decades ago. The vast majority
> of
>> patients I see are not from institutions nor are they in need of
>> institutionalization. They are the product of the decline in social and
>> moral values in our society, the product of radical feminism, the product
> of
>> sexual freedom (this really begin in the 50's with the Kinsey reports) and
>> drug use, and the result that all of that has had on the nuclear family.
>>
>>
>>
>> I could go on.I just recently presented on this topic here where I work,
> and
>> am writing a manuscript on it.
>>
>>
>>
>> James Patterson, Shreveport
>>
>>
>>
>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
>> Behalf Of Dave Wallace
>> Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:34 PM
>> To: ASA
>> Subject: [asa] Society Ignoring Serious Boy Problems
>>
>>
>>
>> Boys' suicide crisis?
>>
>> Another serious problem is suicide rates, Kleinfeld points out.
>>
>> In her review, she cites data from the National Center for Health
> Statistics
>> to show the "alarming" suicide rate among boys. From 1995 to 2005, the
> rate
>> of suicide among 20 to 24 year-old boys was 20.7 suicides per 100,000,
> while
>> the rate for girls was just 3.5 per 100,000. Among 15 to 19 year olds, the
>> rates were 12.5 per 100,000 for boys and 2.8 per 100,000 for girls.
>>
>> And the difference between the gender suicide rates is rising. "In 1933
> the
>> young male suicide rate was 1.54 times higher than for young females. In
>> 2005 the male rate was 4.63 times higher than the female rate," Kleinfeld
>> said.
>>
>> http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-boys-issues.html
>>
>> :-) I assume this study must be using a completely bogus methodology as
> most
>> feminists north of the 49th parallel would totally disagree. :-P
>>
>> Dave W
>>
>> ps my comments were black humour
>>
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>
>
>
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