Overview

The Refugee Council works directly with thousands of refugees each year.  They support them from the moment they arrive in the UK.  They provide crisis advice and practical support, help them to integrate into their new communities and offer mental health counselling to help them come to terms with the trauma so many of them have experienced.  They are the only national organisation providing support to refugee children and young people who arrive in the UK alone.  They also speak up for refugees using their work as an evidence base and ensure refugees have a stronger and more influential voice in decisions that will affect them. They work with a range of partners and in collaboration to ensure they can best support their clients.
The Refugee Council provides:

• Destitution support for asylum seekers
• Helps refugees find housing and jobs
• Works with children. As well as adult refugees and asylum seekers, they work with families and unaccompanied children who arrive in the UK alone.
• Provides mental health assessment, referral and casework for refugees and asylum seekers
• Offers a befriending scheme to help access health and social care services.

Mental Health Support for Refugees & Asylum Seekers
People seeking safety in the UK are often deeply traumatised. They help them to make sense of their experiences, drawing on their resilience and strength to recover and start rebuilding their lives.  Many of the people they support have lived through dreadful experiences and faced devastating losses. All have lost their homes, their livelihoods and their communities and been separated from their loved ones. Many have witnessed terrible violence, been tortured, seen family and friends killed and made perilous journeys before they finally arrive in the UK.  Here in the UK, refugees also suffer acute anxiety about the complex asylum process. They worry about accommodation, money, education, access to legal advice. They fear detention, deportation, destitution and homelessness. And there is a constant concern about loved ones left behind or missing.  All this takes a heavy toll on their emotional and psychological wellbeing.
How they help:  They provide specialist mental health support to help refugees to rebuild their lives using the resilience, strength and skills acquired on their journeys. Their experienced and highly qualified therapists apply a range of evidenced-based and best practice approaches including:

•  One to one counselling, giving individuals intensive support to heal in a safe, private space.
• Psycho-education – health & wellbeing workshops to help refugees to better understand their own situations and promote long-term recovery and support each other.
•  Psychosocial groups where refugees have opportunities to come together, explore their own experience and share them with their peers.
• Intensive casework and crisis intervention when they are at greatest risk of harm.

Refugee Advice Project London
Advice for people recently granted refugee status.  This is an appointment based service based in Stratford, East London.
Tel.  020 7346 1166
email:  [email protected]
Croydon Children’s Advice Project
Offers consistent support and a friendly environment where children (usually teenagers) receive the help they need.
Duty Officer  020 7346 1134,  Mon – Fri  9am – 5.30pm, email: [email protected]
There is a referral form online.
Drop-in surgery at:  Christopher Wren Yard, 115 High Street, Croydon CR0 1QG
London Destitution Service
Hackney Day Centre, Red Cross Building, 92 Dalston Lane, London E8 1NG
More details on the website.
NB. They do not provide advice to people applying for asylum support.  If you require advice of this kind, contact the free helpline operated by Migrant Help on:
0808 8010 503