Kim Brundle-Lawrence first discovered Lifelink Samaritans back in 1972.
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She was a junior office worker in an engineering company, who was charged with answering the phone.
“I’d get these [calls from] women, they’d be screaming,” Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
“Obviously they had the wrong number.”
She discovered the number for Lifelink Samaritans was nearly identical to her work number after investigating why she was receiving the random calls.
Lifelink Samaritans offers a volunteer-run crisis helpline service, which first started in Launceston in 1968.
While the earlier phone calls may have deterred others, she decided it was somewhere she wanted to get involved.
Life got in the way for several decades until about 10 years ago when she signed up to be a volunteer telephone befriender.
The now-Lifelink Samaritans Launceston president has been involved ever since.
“There was a need back in 1968, it was recognised,” Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
Lifelink Samaritans emerged in Launceston at a time when very few crisis services existed across Australia.
The Methodist Church in Sydney had set up a service called Lifeline and the Victorian Mental health Authority has a Melbourne crisis centre.
More and more helplines have cropped up in the past 10 years, she said.
“As long as we can all work together and get a message to the people who aren’t doing so well that there is someone they can talk to, they don’t have to do it alone,” Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
Lifelink Samaritans is not a counselling service.
“We don’t tell them what they possibly should be doing, we just give them the options to try and sort their own life out and we sit and listen to them.
“We can listen to someone who might be suicidal, they might have a health issue, it might be domestic violence, it might be an older person who was lonely.”
Each call could vary dramatically, which meant each volunteer was prepared to handle anything, she said.
“We can go and talk to people with an open mind.”
The latest cohort of volunteers started their training in January.
About 14 people put their hand up to offer their ear to strangers.
Ms Brundle-Lawrence was thrilled as the average turnout was four or five new volunteers each training program.
She has big plans for the call centre in the coming years.
Ms Brundle-Lawrence hoped to put Lifelink Samaritans back on the radar of other support services by networking, and starting up the face-to-face service again after it was removed several years ago.
Funding would be the main challenge for the organisation moving forward, she said.
Funding was the main challenge for the organisation moving forward, Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
“We get a one off government grant.”
No volunteers are paid and the organisation has plenty of bills to pay.
Insurance alone costs $8000.
Each year, the organisation receives a $12,000 grant from the state government.
It costs about $15,000 to run the centre.
Six or seven years ago, the future of the service was in doubt with dwindling volunteer numbers.
Fortunately it managed to pull through, Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
If the service received an additional $5000, she said the organisation could update its computers.
Launceston’s service received 400 calls in December with 50 mainly three-hour shifts covered.
“Somewhere along the line, we have saved lives,” Ms Brundle-Lawrence said.
She hoped to raise additional funds so the service could host speakers from different health providers.
A support person was on offer each month to make sure all of the volunteers were OK, Mr Brundle-Lawrence said.
There are about 20 telephone befrienders who volunteer for the service.
The call centre operates using a system called three rings, which enables calls to be connected to and from Western Australia and New Zealand if lines were busy in Launceston.
They cover daylight shifts between 8am and 11pm, while Western Australia and New Zealand operators pick up calls made outside those hours.
Lifelink Samaritans vice president Lyn McCormick said the three rings program started about three years ago.
Under the title Project Unite, the three areas joined together to help provide support for people struggling.
Each caller was anonymous and didn’t have their location noted, she said.
Ms McCormick was involved in the service decades ago as a mental health worker.
Although it wasn’t until she was retired that Ms McCormick returned to the call centre and took up a volunteer role as a telephone befriender.
“I’d like to see more shifts covered and people on the phones.”
Ms Brundle-Lawrence said ideally each shift would be covered by two people, who could each man a phone.
Contact Lifelink Samaritans on 6331 3355 for more information about the training program to become a telephone befriender.
- If you or someone you know needs support, call Lifelink Samaritans on 6331 3355 or 1300 364 566.