Conversing Care (Charitable Group) is run by a handful of volunteers, providing free and confidential emotional support for anyone in a distressing situation or struggling with their mental health, wellbeing or lacking support.
We also support individuals who may be experiencing a mental health crisis, thinking about hurting themselves or ending their own life. See our Urgent Help page if you’re struggling right now.
We help people better manage their difficulties by:
- Listening to them, acknowledging what they’re struggling with and being responsive to their needs.
- Being resourceful with coping strategies and tools individuals can use to feel more confident in being robust and resilient to their problems.
- Being consistent and accessible with our approach, so our service users feel they have support from another person who cares for their wellbeing.
Our Mission
Our mission is to help those struggling with their mental health and wellbeing by providing free and confidential emotional support digitally and over the phone.
We do this by listening, acknowledging and engaging with our service users, supplemented with resources and practical support.
Aims:
- To be visible and accessible when someone feels like they have no one else to turn to.
- To help de-escalate a persons distress, which could lead to self-harm or suicide.
- Seeing a downfall in rates of self-harm and suicide within the communities we operate in.
Our Vision
Conversing Care wants “to be a leading force in self-harm and suicide prevention through compassionate and practical conversations”.
We envision a world where people don’t feel their only option is to self-harm or end their own life because they don’t have adequate support or they are battling mental health issues in isolation.
Did you know?
- 1 in 3 of our users will express thoughts of wanting to harm themselves.
- Just under 2/3’s of our callers mention they have a history with self harm and suicide attempts.
- 90% of services users express poor or inadequate social support and medical treatment.
Our Values
To universally support anyone in a moment of distress or difficulty, our values allow us to provide a safe space where anyone can feel supported enough to express their difficulties in a safe and practical way.
- Confidentiality & Safety: Trust comes from knowing what the outcomes are. We will always look after information given to us in a confidential way. We will only pass on specific parts of information if we have concerns over someone’s safety to protect life. This is known as safeguarding.
- Responsive & Resourcefulness: Being there at the right time with the right information can be incredibly meaningful during distressing situations. We want to be available if someone needs us, have the right information to hand to support them and have appropriate safety nets put in place to monitor wellbeing.
- Compassionate & Caring: From the bottom up, we care deeply for our service users and we want them to feel that we are here for them. That lays the groundwork for trust to build and solid working relationships to form. A strong protective factor in the fight to tackle suicide.
Volunteers are the backbone of what we do
Everyone at Conversing Care are volunteers, dedicating their time to support others who are struggling.
We are all trained in different communication skills, have experience in the Health & Social Care sector and have robust procedures in place to support anyone needing emotional care.
All volunteers are police checked, vetted and monitored, so you can be rest assured the person you will be speaking to at Conversing Care is generally a decent, well-rounded individual who generally cares about you and your wellbeing.
We are always looking for new volunteers and support so if you are interested, please consider getting in touch.