Gay Cumbria - Help Lines

Here at gaycumbria, we endeavour to help your with as much as we possibly can. However, there are times when only professional help will do. We have listed below a range of help and support services that are available to you. If you know of a service but we have not included it in our list then please don’t hesitate to let us know and we will add it to this page. All details are as up to date as we can get and we apologise if any services change.

GUM Clinics | Cumbria Rape Crisis | The Samaritans | CAB - Citizens Advice Bureau
Local and National HIV & AIDS Help Lines

The Samaritans

www.samaritans.org

TEL: 08457 90 90 90

24 Hour Availability Callers can contact Samaritans by telephone, letter, e-mail and minicom. The commitment to making these means of access available 24 hours a day will be maintained by all branches (except Festival and Correspondence branches). Callers can visit a branch for face-to-face support (except Correspondence branch). Each branch will advertise when they are available for face-to-face support Samaritans’ aim is to ensure that telephone and minicom callers are not kept waiting for a response and that as many as possible get through first time. The objective for distributing calls via 08457 90 90 90 (UK) and 1 850 60 90 90 (ROI) is to cascade geographically by locality and region to try to ensure that no caller receives the engaged tone when a volunteer is available to take a call.

Confidentiality
All information relating to a caller is confidential to Samaritans unless:

1) We have informed consent from a caller to pass on information
2) We call an ambulance because a caller appears to be incapable of making rational decisions for him or herself
3) We receive a court order requiring us to divulge information
4) We are passed information about acts of terrorism or bomb warnings
5) A caller attacks or threatens volunteers
6) A caller deliberately prevents the service from being delivered to other callers.

Samaritans maintains confidentiality even after the death of a caller.

Honesty
Samaritans publicly state how information relating to callers is used.
Callers are informed of what volunteers can and cannot offer.
Samaritans do not make recordings of calls but occasionally a colleague may listen in for training purposes and/or to offer support to the volunteer engaged with a caller.
All complaints will be investigated fully and sympathetically and callers will receive a response in the shortest possible time.