This client has been a household name, with a high-street presence for over 12 years. As one of the country’s largest providers of mortgages and savings, it employs around 20,000 people. When the global pandemic hit, their call centres were receiving around 1,000 calls a day. A special covid helpdesk number was quickly set up, and within a few weeks, they were receiving about 400 calls a week. Callers were concerned about bank charges, mortgage holidays, and how they could financially cope with loss of income or long-term furlough.
Two years later, the financial situation for many had not improved. The organisation was aware the conversations had changed. The Debt Advice Call Centre team were taking calls which frequently included mental ill health concerns, specifically suicide ideation.
In October 2022, the organisation’s Training and Development Manager contacted Training for Life. After review, and talking to the team, it was agreed the best solution would be to provide Suicide First Aid training.
Over two months, 180 call centre staff received Suicide First Aid Training. The training was delivered by three qualified instructors. The training was delivered both face-to-face in the Glasgow and Sheffield head offices, and virtually.
Training for Life asks participants to complete an evaluation after each session to allow constant improvement and development. The average score was 4.8/5, which is one of the highest scores ever achieved by the National Centre for Suicide Prevention Training for a commissioned course. In addition, the following comment was received:
“My line manager first mentioned the possibility of suicide awareness training at the beginning of this year. I work in an inbound call centre dealing with our customers’ mortgage debt and we have seen a noticeable increase in the number of calls that turn to conversations about mental ill health due to debt. These calls can sometimes also turn to customers openly talking about thoughts about ending their lives, such is their hopelessness about their financial circumstances.
I put my name forward as wanting to be trained and subsequently, my whole team was told that the training was being rolled out on a mandatory basis. This was amazing news and in March I attended training delivered by an organisation called Training For Life and my instructor was called Sally. I completed the Suicide First Aid© course and received my certificate via email the next day.
I definitely feel much better equipped to deal with this type of phone call, because I now know what to say and how to say it”.
If your team is dedicated to supporting clients through the hardest of times, because of the nature of your work, we can help. Whether it’s training team members to be certified Mental Health First Aiders®, or raising awareness of suicide prevention, we can work with you to develop bespoke training courses.
Find out how here.