020 8159 8355 [email protected]

Black River Counselling

Black River counselling is a free online service supporting people of Black African/African-Caribbean heritage during these challenging times.

It provides up to eight (8) weeks of 50 minute online counselling to Lambeth and Southwark clients.

If you are a key worker, a young adult (aged 18+), an elder or someone who just needs to talk, please get in touch.

The service exists to meet the mental health and wellbeing needs of the Black Community. It does so by providing culturally specific short term counselling for Black People by Black Counsellors & Psychotherapists.

We are a small, funded project team whose aim is to raise the awareness of counselling as a support mechanism and tool for Mental wellbeing within our communities.

Life can be busy, hectic, demanding, and stressful. Big and small changes happen which can impact our lives significantly. Mental wellbeing helps to navigate through these times.

Taking 1 hour out of your day, each week for 8 weeks could help and change your future.

Registration is required to access the service

Please accept our apologies but due to the recent high demand for the service, we are not currently taking on any new client registrations.

If you would like to access this service, please Click Here to complete a Registration Form. Or scan the QR Code.

Once we have received your completed Registration Form, a member of our team will call you to run through a short self-referral questionnaire, with a view of offering you an appointment and/or adding you to our waiting list.

We only make calls on Thursdays between 9am – 5pm from the number: 08081 963 007.

If you are unable to receive calls on a Thursday, please contact us and request a self-referral form which you will be required to complete.

Click here to request a self-referral form :
Leave us a message on our voicemail service: 08081 963 007

About us

The Black River Counselling Service was founded in June 2020. It was started because of the disproportionate number of deaths and stressors on the black community caused by the COVID 19 pandemic.[1] It was also started because of the experience of racism, discrimination, and police brutality, which was highlighted in 2020 following the death of George Floyd by law enforcement. Since that time, we have so far helped and supported over one-hundred and fifty black people[2].

Unfortunately, societal pressures that affect mental health still disproportionally impacts black lives in Lambeth and Southwark. At Black River we feel passionately that the time to address black mental health is long overdue. We recognise that historically our community has not accessed preventative services, especially talking therapies. One of the reasons is the high cost of private counselling, alongside the feeling of being misunderstood by non-black counsellors and therapists.

At Black River we aim to remedy this, offering qualified Black counsellors and therapists for short term counselling free of charge. Black mental health matters and being able to talk to someone with insight into the black experience can be crucial to mental wellbeing.

Black Rivers Counsellors

Allison Taylor

A qualified Psychotherapist & Clinical Supervisor with over 25 years’ experience. She has extensive experience, working with both long and short-term clients.

Her skills are based on identifying clinical and behavioural issues that negatively impact on interpersonal, peer/sibling and family relationships, including conflicts and anger management.

Stephen Rudder

Trained as a Psychotherapist at Tavistock and Portman NHS trust, his practice as a therapist and counsellor is influenced by how early life experience and the unconscious mind affect a person’s thinking.

Statistic by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that Black people were up to four times more likely to die with COVID-19 than their white counterparts. This analysis, which was published on Thursday 20th May 2020, showed black women were more likely to die by a factor of 4.3 and black men by 4.2 compared to Caucasian people, after adjusting for age.
150 people of African and African Caribbean decent have accessed the service at 12th December 2022

Black River Counselling