Welcome to Samaritans of Glasgow

Glasgow Branch opened its doors on May 23, 1960, and since then we have prided ourselves on being available for callers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our branch was awarded the Queen's Award for Volunteering in 2004.

We currently have 182 volunteers, with new Samaritans welcomed four times a year to allow us to maintain our 24-hour availability to callers.

In 2017 Glasgow Samaritans offered emotional support to people at a time of crisis by answering more than 42,000 telephone calls and replying to around 2,400 emails and 6,800 text messages. Our volunteers also spoke with 400 face-to-face contacts who visited our branch.

In the Community

As well as supporting our callers we support the Listener schemes in two local prisons, HMP Barlinnie and HMP Low Moss. The Listeners were introduced to prisons in 1991 and are specially trained prisoners who do the same work as Samaritans: offering emotional support to other prisons in need.

Our volunteers regularly deliver talks and presentations to local schools, raising awareness of emotional health in young people.

Glasgow Samaritans also has a number of partnerships with local organisations, providing outreach and support to the likes of food banks, educational institutions and railway operators. For more information, send an email to outreach@glasgowsamaritans.org.

Our volunteers also deliver talks to local groups who are interested in learning about our work. If you would like us to talk to your club or society, please email us at glasgowsams@btconnect.com or contact us using the General Enquiries form.

Volunteering with Glasgow Samaritans

We hold information sessions throughout the year, giving potential volunteers a chance to find out more about the services we offer and meet some of the team, as well as find out a bit more about what's involved in training.

All the sessions are held at the branch. For further details, please email us at volunteer@glasgowsamaritans.org or contact us using the General Enquiries form.

Visiting Glasgow Samaritans

Currently our branch is closed to visitors on a pop-in basis. We hope to review this in the near future.