Support service
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At Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre we offer free specialist support to women and girls across Cambridgeshire who have been subjected to rape and sexual violence, no matter when that abuse happened.
Every year, our confidential, non-judgemental and user-led services empower over one thousand women and girls to not only cope and recover from the impacts of sexual violence but to go on to flourish and thrive. If you need to talk, you can call the helpline during opening hours to speak with one of our trained volunteers. If you are calling for the first time you will have up to 45 minutes (up to 30 minutes after that) to chat with one of our trained volunteers over the phone. During the session, the volunteer will create a safe space for you to talk, and we will listen to whatever you want to say, at your pace. Don’t worry if you don’t know where to begin. We will help you to find ways to express difficult feelings and talk about difficult situations, without offering advice or telling you what to do. We can ask questions and listen while you explore your options, and if you ask us for information about other forms of support, we can help provide this too.
What they offer
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre offers free and confidential practical support and advice for survivors of sexual violence through its advocacy service. This service is part of the Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Partnership and comprises a countywide team of Independent Sexual Violence Advocates (ISVAs) and Children and Young People’s Independent Sexual Violence Advocates (ChISVAs).
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.
Our peer support groups are an important part of our counselling support work. In general, there are 6-12 individuals per group and the group runs for a set number of weekly sessions, facilitated by a qualified and experienced woman counsellor. We see how valuable it is for survivors to meet other people who ‘get it’, making them feel less alone and even making it easier for them to let go of negative coping strategies and develop new positive ones. Our groups counsellor said “I believe that this sort of safe space where survivors feel validated, accepted, heard, considered and cared for, fosters a different sense of self where they can begin to get their lives back.”
