Samaritans open new SafePlace location in Quincy

A new, free-of-charge support group sponsored by The Samaritans will provide invaluable service for those who have lost a loved one to suicide.

BOSTON, May 19, 2005 . . . The Samaritans has expanded its services to suicide survivors – those who have lost a loved one to suicide – by opening a new SafePlace support group in Quincy beginning June 9, 2005. SafePlace is a free, ongoing, and confidential support group for people who have lost loved ones to suicide. Each Safe Place meeting is facilitated by trained volunteers who have also lost a loved one to suicide.

The meetings are sponsored by The Samaritans and provide an atmosphere of acceptance, space to share each person’s story at their own pace and support around coping with their loss. The Samaritans currently offer SafePlace support groups in Boston, Medford and Framingham and will be opening a new, fourth SafePlace location in the South Shore on June 9, 2005. Meetings will be held on the second and fourth Thursday of each month from 7 to 9 PM at the Quincy Medical Center, 114 Whitwell Street, Quincy, MA.

“The entire Samaritan community is thrilled with this service expansion,” said Roberta Hurtig, Executive Director of Samaritans. “We have been able to provide support to so many individuals and families through our SafePlace program, and yet I know there are many people who have found it difficult to travel to Boston, Medford or Framingham and who have been requesting that we establish a support group for suicide survivors on the South Shore.”

“The skills of our SafePlace facilitators are wonderful in creating an environment of support and healing,” said Kim Kates, Director of Program Services, “I look forward to assisting more people through establishing this new service location. We can’t thank Quincy Medical Center enough for allowing us to use their conference room facilities for this ongoing support group.”

More than 400 people lose their lives each year in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to suicide, that is almost two and a half times the number lost to homicide. For each completed suicide, there are innumerable family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues left to grieve and struggle with their loss and the many unanswered questions that accompany these deaths.

Samaritans, Inc. is the area’s only organization dedicated to suicide prevention services. In the over 30 years of service, more than 1.3 million phone calls have been answered on our telephone hotlines, over 4,000 volunteers trained, more than 100,000 individuals instructed through our community education and outreach programs and thousands of individuals and families helped through our survivor support groups.

For more information SafePlace, click here.

Contact Information

Kim Kates
Samaritans
617-536-2460
kkates@samaritanshope.org

< Back to list of press releases