Mental Health Support
Culturally sensitive counselling and emotional wellbeing support
About the project
ROOTS is SMEF’s counselling and emotional wellbeing service for women from ethnic minority communities across Surrey. We offer a supportive space to explore concerns, make sense of difficult feelings and develop ways to cope with everyday challenges.
Our approach recognises how culture, faith, family and life experiences can shape mental wellbeing. Through culturally sensitive support, we help women feel heard, build confidence and access further support when needed.
What Roots offers
One to One Counselling
A supportive space to explore your concerns with understanding of your culture, background and experiences.
Emotional Support
Understand difficult feelings, develop coping strategies and build confidence.
Finding further support
Understand your options and connect with appropriate services.
Make a referral or self refer
If you a professional and would like to refer someone from the ethnic minority community for counselling please use this form.
Roots was chosen as the service name because it reflects a simple but powerful idea.
When the Roots of a tree are nurtured and supported, the tree becomes stable, healthy and able to grow. Women’s emotional wellbeing is very similar. When the foundations are strengthened through culturally sensitive support, women feel more confident, more grounded and better able to cope with the pressures they face.
Rise
Open up
Overcome
Trust
Strengthen
These five words capture the journey women often experience when they access support. They rise in confidence, open up safely, overcome internal and external barriers, build trust in themselves and the system, and strengthen their emotional foundations. ROOTS therefore works at two levels. It conveys the therapeutic purpose of the service through the metaphor of strong foundations, and it sets out the values that guide the work.
Voices from Our Service Users
“I just wanted to say thank you for being so understanding and supportive. Although I have had counselling before, with you I felt at ease and felt that I didn’t need to explain too much about my background. I truly appreciate how comfortable and understood you made me feel during the session.”
Anonymous Service User
"I was reluctant to start counselling sessions as it is not seen as a positive thing to share your worries or concerns outside of the family in my culture. But my mental health was really struggling, and having these sessions has shown me that speaking to someone doesn’t mean the whole world will find out. I have received help and support privately and I feel so much better for it.”
Anonymous Service User
Working towards better services
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Purpose: Prevent escalation and crisis by providing early, culturally responsive emotional wellbeing support for people who do not meet (or are not engaging with) statutory thresholds.
Scope: Tier 2 support, typically short-to-medium term, non-clinical/culturally grounded emotional wellbeing interventions, peer spaces where appropriate, and structured navigation/signposting.
Boundaries: ROOTS does not duplicate NHS Talking Therapies, CMHT or PMHS. It complements them by increasing engagement, confidence and readiness to access appropriate services, with clear safeguarding and risk escalation routes.
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Culturally safe emotional wellbeing support that helps women make sense of stress, trauma, anxiety and low mood in a non-stigmatising way.
Early intervention below threshold: stabilisation, coping strategies, emotional literacy and resilience-building to reduce deterioration.
Trust-building and engagement: reducing fear of services; improving confidence to seek help when needed.
Navigation and warm handovers to appropriate statutory/VCSE services, including support to attend appointments and understand options.
Clear safeguarding and escalation: consistent assessment of risk, supervision/debrief, and escalation pathways for crisis or safeguarding concerns.
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Commission and embed Tier 2 VCSE support like ROOTS as core mental health inequalities infrastructure, not a short-term add-on, because it prevents escalation and reduces avoidable demand on crisis and acute pathways.
Create clear interfaces between ROOTS and NHS pathways (Talking Therapies, PMHS, primary care, community mental health, crisis) with agreed referral criteria, warm handovers and feedback loops.
Recognise cultural and structural barriers as clinical risk multipliers (stigma, racism, language, trauma, digital exclusion, insecure housing/finances) and resource services accordingly.
Invest in culturally inclusive access: interpretation, accessible information, non-digital routes, and trauma-informed approaches that reduce fear and increase disclosure.
Strengthen workforce cultural competence across partner services so that women are met with respectful, culturally responsive practice when they step into statutory care.
Use community insight to drive service improvement: establish a routine learning loop where ROOTS themes translate into practical pathway and practice changes.
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Earlier support and reduced escalation: more women receive help before crisis; fewer “bounces” between thresholds.
Improved wellbeing and coping: demonstrated through simple pre/post measures and qualitative feedback.
Improved access and engagement: increased uptake of appropriate NHS/VCSE support through warm handovers and supported navigation.
Better experience of care and trust: women report feeling listened to, understood and respected.
System change: partners implement agreed improvements (e.g., referral routes, accessible information, culturally responsive practice) informed by ROOTS learning.
Quality and safety: safeguarding and risk escalation applied consistently, supported by supervision and clinical/experienced oversight where appropriate.
Invitation to Collaborate
We are ready to scale the Roots model across Surrey and beyond. SMEF invites funders, commissioners and research partners to help us expand culturally responsive autism services and amplify the voices of families too often unheard.
