FAQ

Southall Black Sisters provides information, advice, advocacy, practical help, counselling and support to Black and minoritised (including migrant) women and children experiencing domestic and sexual abuse. 

We do not provide general advice on housing, benefits, crime or immigration issues unless these are connected to domestic or sexual abuse.

See our Services page for detailed information about the work we do.

Our holistic services aim to help Black and minoritised women and children escape violence and abuse and a range of interrelated issues such as:

• Forced marriage
• Honour crimes
• Rape and sexual abuse
• Sexual harassment
• Dowry related abuse
• Matrimonial issues
• Child residence and contact
• Housing and homelessness
• Immigration and asylum
• Mental health, suicide and self-harm
• Policing and crime
• Suspicious deaths and coroners’ inquests
• Civil actions
• Human rights
• Racism

Anybody can call our Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0208 571 0800 to seek advice, information and guidance in relation to domestic and sexual abuse. 

We can only take on a case and offer our full range of services if the person experiencing abuse lives in one of the three boroughs below. If not, we’ll provide one-off telephone advice and refer you to appropriate agencies who will be able to assist you. We conduct forced marriage casework nationally.

• Ealing
• Hounslow
• Hillingdon

We provide support and advice not only to women but also to their children. We also provide advice and support to friends and relatives who are attempting to assist a woman or child experiencing violence and abuse, or following death in murder and suicide cases. 

We support Black and minoritised women of all ages.

We do not provide assistance to male victims of abuse but can refer them to appropriate agencies for support.

Yes. Our staff speak a range of South Asian and African languages and we provide interpreters for other languages not spoken by our team.

You can call our Domestic Abuse Helpline any time between 9:00am and 5:00pm Monday – Friday.

If you’d prefer to speak to us face to face, you can call or email us to make an appointment. If you come to our centre without an appointment, you may be asked to leave and come back later if there is nobody available to help you. If you are in an emergency, we will always do our best to help you even if you don’t have an appointment.

Our centre is open between 9:00am and 5:00pm Monday – Friday. We do not provide a 24-hour or weekend emergency service.

Our phone lines are very busy and our caseworkers are often meeting with clients in the centre or out at appointments. If you are unable to get through when you call, please leave a voicemail message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

No. All of our domestic abuse information, advice, advocacy and counselling services are provided free of charge.

We can provide initial advice on immigration & asylum issues, injunctions, divorce, child residence, housing and financial matters. After our initial assessment and advice, we will always refer you to or advise you to find your own legal advisor. If we take on your case, and depending on resources, we can accompany you to appointments with your legal advisor and to court hearings, and work in partnership with your lawyers to prepare applications and appeals.

We are registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner.

SBS has set up a No Recourse Fund to support destitute migrant victims of gender-based abuse who have insecure immigration status and are subject to the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) rule. 

The NRF is a ‘last resort’ fund which means that it will only be available in circumstances where all other avenues of financial support including local authority support and support via the DDVC have been exhausted or are non-existent.

Southall Black Sisters is not a refuge and is not affiliated with any refuges. We can refer to you to refuges or support you to find emergency accommodation but this accommodation is not managed by Southall Black Sisters.

We offer one-to-one counselling with a qualified psychotherapist as part of our holistic advocacy services. Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to offer standalone counselling services to women whose cases we do not take on.

We run a weekly support group for our clients. Sessions take place in our centre or a local venue.

Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to accommodate standalone counselling services to women whose cases we do not take on.

We provide expert reports and support letters to legal and welfare advisors on issues affecting Black and minoritised women experiencing domestic abuse. These cover issues such as the impact of domestic abuse and religious & cultural pressures on victims. We normally only provide letters and reports for our clients. Advisors should refer to our publications and briefings page or contact us to check fees and capacity. 

We provide training to statutory, voluntary and private sector bodies including, but not limited to, the police, social workers, lawyers, health professionals, refuge workers, schools, magistrates and judges. Contact us for availability and fees.

Yes, depending on staff capacity and availability. Please contact us as far in advance as possible if you would like to invite us to speak at a particular event.

Unfortunately, due to our capacity and the nature of our work, we are not able to assist researchers to conduct interviews with our service users.

However, we do have a number of reports and resources on our website that may assist you. Please see: https://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/reports/reports

We only provide interpreting and translation services for our clients in relation to domestic abuse matters.

We do not currently have any opportunities to volunteer or carry out a work placement. 

All current opportunities are listed on our vacancies page.

Donations of any amount allow us to continue our work to support the most marginalised victims of domestic abuse. Head to our donate page to find out how you can donate and how your contribution could help us.

Head to our online store to browse our range of books, greeting cards and publications. Profits from all sales help us to continue supporting the most marginalised victims of domestic abuse.

Due to limited storage facilities, we are usually unable to accept donations of clothes and toiletries from the public. If you’d like to donate items to a domestic abuse support service, the best course of action would be to find a local service and get in touch with the service directly to find out if they can accept your donation. 

If you are a company or organisation looking to donate sealed/bulk items, send us an email so we can discuss this with you.

Follow us on social media and join our mailing list to receive updates on our latest news, campaigns and events. 

As part of our campaigning work, we organise demonstrations, public meetings and letter writing. If you are interested in getting involved, please check our campaigning and events section.