About – CCAWS

Phone:
029 20345 294

Address:
62 Whitchurch Road
Cardiff
CF14 3LX

Email address:
info@ccaws.org.uk

Who Are We?

A local mental health charity, serving the social and mental well-being needs of the diverse communities of Cardiff & South Wales.

Our Vision.

‘A stronger community built on resilience and an increased awareness of mental and social well-being’.

Our mission is ‘to help people learn and develop mental, emotional, social and spiritual strength for life’.

About Us.

Community Care & Wellbeing Service, known as CCAWS, is a registered charity (1177025) providing specialist mental health support to the diverse communities of Cardiff & South Wales.

CCAWS is a community-led service, run for and by people from diverse communities. All of our trustees are from diverse community backgrounds, and over half of our staff and volunteers also come from diverse communities. Our workforce truly represents the communities we serve, with an array of languages enabling us to deliver multilingual and multicultural support in a culturally and faith-sensitive setting. As a community-led service, we have lived experience, awareness, and understanding of cultural sensitivities and complexities.

Our approach is unique and successful in bridging the gap and in dealing with the mental health taboos and stigmas that often exist in culturally diverse communities.

Meet

Our Team

Fehmida Ahmed

Operational Manager

Tariq Awan

Assistant Operational Manager

Idil Ahmed

Administrator

Sherin Begum

Lead Counsellor

Asma Sharif

Counsellor / Bereavement Support Officer

El Davis

Counsellor

Sameea Alam

Counsellor / Grief Support Project Worker

Our Community Experience & Networks

CCAWS was established in 2018, built on the work of its predecessor project Minds at Ease which provided culturally sensitive mental health support in South Wales from 2009-2015. The most widely accessed service at CCAWS is counselling, provided by our team of professional BACP/ UKCP registered counsellors.

About Us

Our History

In 2018 Community Care & Wellbeing Service (CCAWS) was formed through the request of our beneficiaries, people from Black Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds living in Cardiff and South Wales. It was built on the work of our predecessor organisation ISSA Wales, which was active in Cardiff & South Wales for 12 years, between 2005-2017, providing mental health and social support to diverse communities.

A group of dedicated volunteers created the vision for a culturally appropriate community wellbeing service; some of whom are now serving as members of our Board of Trustees. They recognised that BAME communities are less likely to access mainstream mental health services, and very often experience and fear stigma associated with mental health. There are many misconceptions about mental health, which we work to tackle and to positively raise awareness of wellbeing and the need to develop resilience and better coping strategies in the face of adversity. CCAWS has grown through the goodwill of our volunteers and community members who are keen to see a service that has been developed at grass root level to develop, gain stability and strengthen the support it offers to the diverse communities.

Depression and anxiety effect all communities but are less talked about or understood in BAME communities. We aim to raise awareness and create better understanding of mental health and wellbeing through community engagement efforts and through working with national campaigns such as Time To Talk. We want people to know that we are here, we understand, and it is okay to not be okay. At CCAWS we want people to know that language and cultural differences should not be a barrier in receiving the right support and treatment.

Our staff and volunteers are representative of the diverse BAME communities, representing Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, European, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Russian, Somali, Sudanese, amongst others.

We are able to provide frontline support in community languages, without the need to use external language interpreters. Having our own staff and volunteers trained in mental health support and being able to provide this directly in people’s first languages is unique to CCAWS. We can work one to one with our clients in a safe space and are able to build more effective rapport due to our cultural awareness, understanding and language proficiencies.

About Us

Our Community Experience & Networks

On average we provide 70 hours of counselling per week to people from various ethnic backgrounds, including Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Arabic, Sudanese, & Somali. A significant number of our clients are also refugee and asylum seekers. We have 3 counselling rooms on site and also deliver counselling remotely via Zoom or Telephone. Per quarter we receive approximately 150 client referrals (600 per year). We have a strong in-house clinical supervision team and a Lead Counsellor.

CCAWS counselling service is unique in that it can be provided in a client’s first language without the need to use external interpreters. This is more powerful, strengthening the client-counsellor therapeutic relationship and enabling greater relational depth.

Alternative to counselling, we also provide 1:1 Befriending & Advocacy, Friendship & Support groups, and Psycho-education workshops. A core theme throughout CCAWS is in building the resilience of our communities. We use a culturally sensitive person-centred approach that empowers our service users and challenges barriers and stigma that remain within society.

We are able to provide frontline support in community languages, without the need to use external language interpreters. Having our own staff and volunteers trained in mental health support and being able to provide this directly in people’s first languages is unique to CCAWS. We can work one to one with our clients in a safe space and are able to build more effective rapport due to our cultural awareness, understanding and language proficiencies.

Due to remote online and telephone counselling services, people from outside of Wales can also refer to our paid counselling service, if they are seeking culturally sensitive provision.

A group of dedicated volunteers created the vision for a culturally appropriate community wellbeing service; some of whom are now serving as members of our Board of Trustees. They recognised that BAME communities are less likely to access mainstream mental health services, and very often experience and fear stigma associated with mental health. There are many misconceptions about mental health, which we work to tackle and to positively raise awareness of wellbeing and the need to develop resilience and better coping strategies in the face of adversity. CCAWS has grown through the goodwill of our volunteers and community members who are keen to see a service that has been developed at grass root level to develop, gain stability and strengthen the support it offers to the diverse communities.

Depression and anxiety effect all communities but are less talked about or understood in BAME communities. We aim to raise awareness and create better understanding of mental health and wellbeing through community engagement efforts and through working with national campaigns such as Time To Talk. We want people to know that we are here, we understand, and it is okay to not be okay. At CCAWS we want people to know that language and cultural differences should not be a barrier in receiving the right support and treatment.

Our staff and volunteers are representative of the diverse BAME communities, representing Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, European, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Russian, Somali, Sudanese, amongst others.

We are able to provide frontline support in community languages, without the need to use external language interpreters. Having our own staff and volunteers trained in mental health support and being able to provide this directly in people’s first languages is unique to CCAWS. We can work one to one with our clients in a safe space and are able to build more effective rapport due to our cultural awareness, understanding and language proficiencies.