Aviva Community Fund has provided £244 of match funding
Let’s Keep Talking - telephone therapy service
Liverpool, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Providing free, fast, self-referred and open-access talking therapy to vulnerable people, over the telephone.
What is Let’s Keep Talking?
Let’s Keep Talking is a free telephone service, set up and run by a Liverpool-based group of therapists, psychologists and counsellors, responding to the need for timely and effective help to those in distress. We aim to offer free, accessible, high quality ‘talking therapy’ to anyone in need of support, whether because of mental ill health, loneliness, worry, bereavement, or simply because they are feeling ‘stuck’. We know that complex referral procedures, intrusive assessments and long waiting lists aren’t helpful when people are feeling low, so we keep our service as simple and flexible as possible, and strive continually to make it more accessible to those most in need of this kind of support.
How did Let’s Keep Talking begin?
The project started as a spontaneous response to the first Covid 19 lockdown. We anticipated that the lockdown and pandemic would lead to increased demand for mental health services alongside a reduction in their availability and accessibility to those most in need. With time on our hands (due to the lockdown) and skills to offer, we set up our service within one week of the lockdown beginning.
We started off by publicising the service very locally, via voluntary and NHS services working with vulnerable and isolated people in Liverpool and Merseyside. Since our early days, we have done very little to further promote the service and yet the demand for it continues to rise, and our referrals are now coming from an ever-wider geographical area (including Birmingham, Coventry and Newcastle as well as Liverpool!) as word has spread about how fast, flexible, friendly and effective this service is.
How effective is Let’s Keep Talking?
Over the 18 months we have been running the service, we have provided over 3000 therapeutic conversations to around 350 people. Demand is still huge, and rising, and we have had to increase the number of therapists from the eight who initially set up the service, to a pool of 30 , some of whom now work on a paid sessional basis, and some of whom continue to offer their time on a purely voluntary basis.
Six months into the project, a team of researchers from Liverpool University School of Management carried out an independent evaluation of Let’s Keep Talking. Their report, (https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/humanitiesampsocialsciences/documents/Evaluation-of-the-Lets-Keep-Talking-Service.pdf ) revealed that many people would continue to use the service in a post-pandemic situation, either as their primary source of mental health support or in conjunction with face-to-face therapy, and concluded that “Let’s Keep Talking has an important post-pandemic role to play, particularly in light of the lengthy waiting lists of most mainstream mental health services’.
We are very keen to fulfil this role and make our service a permanent part of the mental health service landscape. Our referrers and clients seem to agree that we must keep this service going....
What do people who use Let’s Keep Talking say about us?
The organisations who refer people to us, and the people who use Let’s Keep Talking themselves, tell us that we are unique in terms of both the speed and effectiveness of our service. Below are just a few examples of the many glowing testimonials we receive from our clients on a daily basis:
- I am 66, live alone and have no family close by who can visit me. This service has made a huge difference, not just to my lockdown experience but also to my whole life. I have been able to start to change my attitude to my daily experience. Rather than concentrating on feelings of isolation and loneliness, a new habit is developing of thinking "what has worked well for me so far today". This positive focus is so much better for my mental and emotional health and I have noticed that I am looking more at the "light side of life" rather than the "dark side" which is such a comfort and encouragement in these difficult times.
- I just wanted to write to give my thanks and true appreciation for the fantastic help I have been receiving. I wish that my Let’s Keep Talking caller could be gift wrapped because that is how she makes me feel after each call. She is a gift to me
- I was in a very low mood a few weeks ago, I had been let down by (another service) after waiting since February for their calls. They had helped me in the past but comparing the different styles of help between ' Let’s Keep Talking' and Cognitive therapy I feel that I have progressed so much quicker. Even after the first call which I received I noticed a change in my thinking. I have had three calls to date and I am amazed by how much I am beginning to remember about my old self, I am feeling happier and putting this down to my Let’s Keep Talking caller who points out to me my strengths. I hadn't noticed them at all. I have recommended Let's Keep Talking to others and will continue to do so. Please accept my thanks and gratitude.
- Because of my past trauma I just wanted to look at the past. Since our phone call I can tell that I’m not living in the past I’m living in the now and I can make my own happiness… I just wanted to say a big thank you. It’s the greatest thing ever.
- You listen and I feel you understand how I feel and how I’ve been. It’s helped me to be more forward. Now, if the coffee is cold, I’ll take it back.
- Let’s Keep Talking has changed me as a person, learned me to trust and express also my counsellor is fantastic who has helped me on my 5 month journey I can’t thank this service enough . I pray others use Let’s Keep Talking phone service when needed
- You’re like a compass to me, you haven’t got me lost in my problems you’ve got me kicking against them thinking what I can do about them. I like the way you ask me questions about how I see myself, it’s like you help me get to the south on the compass, somewhere warmer.
- Let’s Keep Talking is a useful counselling service which focuses on finding solutions and positivity which has helped me a lot as I suffer from depression. Thank you Let’s Keep Talking
- I have been talking to my Let’s Keep Talking caller for a number of months now. In doing this I have increased in confidence as we have established a lovely friendly relationship. With her help, I have gained trust…. This has enabled me to confide and share any troubles I have had from my past. At the end of each session she asks me to rate my progress on a scale. This has enabled me to see my progress and recognise when I have positive experiences in my life. Overall, this service has helped me significantly…. I hope to continue using Let's Keep Talking to enable me to reach full recovery. Thank you.
And from one of the main organisations in Liverpool who signpost and refer their vulnerable clients to us:
- Over the last 18 months, the Citizens Advice on Prescription Liverpool team received thousands of referrals from health practitioners across the city. Many of those referred were experiencing significant mental distress. Our staff team often struggled to find counselling services that didn't have waiting lists of over 8 weeks. Let’s Keep Talking were an invaluable resource to us and our service users. On referral they match the counsellor's expertise to the individual needs of the patients and this has proven invaluable, feedback from the people we have referred to them is very positive. At a time when we needed them most, this service responded swiftly and expertly to the individual needs of our service users.
Why does Let’s Keep Talking need funding?
We ran our service on a completely voluntary basis for the first six months, with the therapists involved giving their time for free, using their own phones and making calls to our clients from their own homes. As time has gone on it has been increasingly necessary for these therapists to be reimbursed for their time in order to ensure we can continue to offer this service. Therefore any funding we get will be spent mostly on paying a modest rate to the trained and skilled callers who are at the heart of our service.
We also need funding to help us continue to recruit and train new callers, as our service expands, and to invest in technological developments (such as our Let’s Keep Talking phone app) that will make accessing the service even easier for people who need it. And we also need some funding to help spread the word about the service and ensure that everyone who needs to knows how to contact us!
Although we have set our funding target high - a reflection of the fact that demand for this service is continuing to expand rapidly - even smaller amounts of funding can make a significant difference to the work that we can do. For example:
- £5 could fund a 15 minute call - and sometimes it can take only one 15 minute call to help someone feel less alone
- £20 could fund a 15 minute call every day for 4 days, for someone going through a tough short-term crisis – or weekly calls for a month, so they can check in with the same person each week and tell them how they are doing
- £50 could fund three 50-minute calls,or a greater number of shorter calls lasting up to a total of two and a half hours. With this sort of time, even people with ‘complex’ difficulties can notice real changes, as illustrated by the third testimonial, above. This length of time is the average amount that most of our clients need from our service
- £100 could fund a day’s training for up to 10 of our volunteers, ensuring that they are keeping their skills up-to-date and getting input on how to be even more effective in their conversations with others
- £500 could pay for a complete induction and training programme for a brand new volunteer, and so make it possible to ensure that our pool of callers is refreshed an expanded over time.
Anything at all that you can pledge to Let's Keep Talking will be gratefully received and put to good use helping the clients who use our service daily.
Thank you!
Suzi and the Let's Keep Talking team
This project successfully funded on 7th December 2021