Counselling service

What is our counselling service?

Our free and confidential counselling service aims to give survivors of sexual violence a safe space where you can have the time and peace needed to think and talk things through. Our hope is this will help you on your way to regaining a sense of control over your own life.

Who is the service for?

Our counselling service is available for survivors of rape, child sexual abuse or any form of sexual violence of any age (children aged 5 years and over) living within Cambridgeshire, who has visited a SARC within the last 12 months.

If you haven’t visited a SARC within the last 12 months, as of February 2025, we are operating a waiting list for counselling while we seek further funding. We will keep you updated regarding waiting times if you decide to refer. We are hopeful that we can secure additional funding and would continue to keep you informed whilst on the waiting list.

If you haven’t visited a SARC within the last 12 months, our counselling service is available or those who have been subjected to, or are being subjected to, any form of sexual violence and/or abuse, living within Cambridgeshire, and who are:

  • women
  • girls (ages 5+)
  • AFAB non-binary individuals
  • individuals who have experienced oppression as women

This includes women and girls who are trans.

If you are a supporter of a survivor, we can signpost you to organisations that provide specialist counselling support – please email us to find out more (contact details are found under ‘Queries’ on this page and also below in the FAQs). 

Please note our funding can be sporadic, so we may need to close the waiting list from time to time. We will always let you know if this is the case and will keep this website updated.

The way we work

Once we receive your referral, we can offer you a set amount of counselling sessions with a qualified and experienced counsellor.

All our counsellors are women and all sessions are free of charge.

We have a client-centred, non-directive approach as we believe that each survivor’s experience is different and that survivors are experts in their own healing.

You don’t have to talk about anything you are not ready to talk about and your counsellor will not judge you or tell you what to do. She will help you to try to make sense of what has happened and explore the ways in which you may feel differently about yourself and your relationships.

Counselling is not a magic wand and cannot make all the pain disappear.

Sometimes you may feel good and positive and at other times you may feel upset and angry. It is important to take care of yourself, especially just before and after your sessions as you will probably be thinking about and speaking about some difficult memories and experiences.

Professionals making a referral

Please ensure that the survivor is aware of and has consented to the referral before making a professional referral to us. Please note that CRCC will carefully assess each referral request to ensure that our service is appropriate for someone at this time and to ensure that they are able to access the service most appropriate to their needs.

Referrals

You can refer yourself – ‘self-refer’ – for our counselling service by completing our online form:

Make a self-referral

If you aren’t able to complete the referral form online, please contact us during office hours on 01223 313 551.

Alternatively, you can ask a professional, for example your GP, to refer you – ‘professional referral’ – to our counselling service. They will need to complete this form:

Make a professional referral

Useful resources

Other support services

Queries

If you have any queries, the counselling team can help guide you through your options. You can contact the team at:

“Counselling has had a massive influence on me and helped me get through one of the most difficult times of my life so far. [My counsellor] has been amazing and taught me how to trust again, deal with my feeling in a more positive and productive way and I am so incredibly grateful for being given this time and support.”
“I finally managed to believe that the abuse in my childhood was not my fault. It’s taken over twenty years to seek help to address some very complicated feelings; I felt as though I had somehow brought it on myself and didn’t deserve to feel anything but self-blame, guilt and shame. In learning about how I’d been targeted, I was able to understand that it wasn’t something I’d invited.”
“Counselling with CRCC was exceptionally helpful and beneficial to my healing and progress, and an organisation I will be eternally grateful for.”
“CRCC was there for me and my daughter in our most difficult time in our life. I don’t know what I would do without them, if they didn’t come in to support us at the right time. You’ve support me throughout my sorrow and sometimes I see no hope for us, you gave me hope. Thank you so much for your patient, love, support, kindness and thoughtfulness. CRCC go above and beyond to support us.”
“[My counsellor] was absolutely amazing! I cannot thank her enough for all her kind support and help. She was always so patient with me and so kind. It was lovely for once I felt I could trust someone 100% and she never judged me or anything. I can’t thank her enough.”
“My counselling, the tools and ways of thinking that [my counsellor] provided me with I found invaluable. And also just the kindness of all the team because I needed someone to be kind to me. I appreciated it a lot.”
“One of the best and most important changes has been meeting [my counsellor] to be able to talk and challenge my thoughts and emotions. I have found her very helpful and friendly throughout. Alongside all those things, I have found better and safer ways of dealing with things and the ability to be able to talk [about my experience] a lot better.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Our counsellors are well qualified and experienced in working with survivors of sexual violence. We adhere to the ethical framework of the BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy). All our counsellors are women.

You can fill in the online self-referral form above. If you would prefer to speak to our Counselling Services Manager before referring yourself, you can email us on counselling@cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk or call our office on 01223 313551. You can also contact us to ask us to email or post a self-referral form and a return envelope to you.

Please fill in the professional referral form above. Please note that CRCC will carefully assess each referral request to ensure that our service is appropriate for someone at this time and to ensure that they are able to access the service most appropriate to their needs.

Our waiting lists can vary by location and it changes throughout the year. Generally the waiting time is around four months, but it can be a little bit more or less than that. We make sure to tell you the current waiting time when you are referred and will be in touch when you are getting close to the top of the waiting list.

First of all we will arrange for you to meet with your counsellor to talk about what you want from the service and what we can offer you. We will try our best to be flexible and to arrange your appointments for times that suit you. You can see your counsellor every week usually at the same time on the same day. Your counselling appointments will last for 50 minutes each time.

If you are struggling financially, we are able to make a reasonable contribution towards the costs of travel. We also offer telephone and video sessions.

We try to be flexible when arranging your appointments, so if your child is at school we will ensure that your appointment has finished by the time the school day is over. If you need to use childcare to be able to attend appointments and you are struggling financially, we are able to make a reasonable contribution towards the costs of someone looking after your child.

If you have visited a SARC within the last 12 months, the service is available for all genders.

If you haven’t visited a SARC within the last 12 months, our counselling service is available or those who have been subjected to, or are being subjected to, any form of sexual violence and/or abuse, living within Cambridgeshire, and who are:

  • women
  • girls (ages 5+)
  • AFAB non-binary individuals
  • individuals who have experienced oppression as women

This includes women and girls who are trans.

The service is for these survivors of all ages, backgrounds and sexual orientation and who feel comfortable receiving support from a service that is run by women for women.

If you have visited a SARC within the last 12 months, the service is available for all genders.

If you haven’t visited a SARC within the last 12 months, our core counselling service is for women and girls only. We recognise that the impacts of sexual violence are no less devastating for men and boys than for women and girls. As an organisation that is run by women for women, the majority of CRCC’s services support women and girls and the funding we receive reflects that.

However, our advocacy service supports survivors of any gender, age or background and, when funding is available, our counselling service does the same. Currently, we do not have the funding to offer counselling support to men and boys.

We believe all survivors of sexual violence deserve specialist support, which is why we recommend men and boy survivors seeking emotional and therapeutic support contact one of the organisations who specialise in supporting men and boy survivors, just as we specialise in supporting women and girl survivors. Details of these organisations can be found here.

Due to demands on the counselling service, we are not able accept repeat referrals or returners unless there is a compelling reason. We also ask that you wait 6 months from when you finished your counselling (if you accessed all sessions available to you) before re-referring. If you would like to discuss this with our Counselling Manager, please email counselling@cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk.

We regret that our funding only allows us to provide the service for people who live in Cambridgeshire, or are being supported by a Cambridgeshire ISVA. If you live in another county, you can contact your nearest Rape Crisis Centre to find out more about their counselling service, or you can get in contact with us at counselling@cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk to find out more.

We only have limited availability for evening and weekend appointments, so the waiting list for these can be up to a year.

We are happy to write a letter of support for your employer to request they allow you take time out from work to attend counselling appointments if you feel this would be helpful. We understand that some people are not comfortable with speaking to their managers about what has happened to them.

Please check the Peterborough Rape Crisis website for information about services covering Peterborough and Fenland. If you have any questions about the service, you can contact Peterborough Rape Crisis directly on 01733 511250.

All staff and volunteers at Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre are DBS checked and have signed a confidentiality agreement. If you have any questions about how your information is stored, please email counselling@cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk. If the police request a copy of our counselling records, we would ask for your permission before releasing them.

If you would be happy to have your sessions remotely, we can ask other centres within the Rape Crisis England and Wales network if they have a counsellor who speaks your preferred or first language, and we would then try to arrange sessions for you with them. Generally, we couldn’t provide this service for in-person sessions as the counsellor would be based in a different area.

Counselling in another language isn’t always possible but we will keep you updated. If we cannot provide counselling in your language, we will try to find alternative organisations to support you.