Email Support

Our Email Support service is run by Cambrige Rape Crisis Centre and is available for self-defining women and girls. If you would like to receive support from us by email, you can contact us at support@cambridgerapecrisis.org.uk.

When you email us, we aim to reply within 7 days. If you don’t receive a reply within ten days, it may be worth checking your junk mail folder just in case. Please note that we are unable to open any attachments (documents, photos etc.).

The email support service is provided by a group of volunteers. As with our helpline, all our volunteers are women and are trained in supporting survivors of rape, childhood sexual abuse, or any other form of sexual violence. If you choose to email us more than once, you will receive replies from different volunteers – we can’t guarantee that you will always receive replies from the same person.

Our email support service is not a counselling service. We don’t tell you what to do, offer advice, or try to influence your decisions; we do not claim to have any answers. Instead, we can raise questions and support you while you explore your options, and how you are feeling about managing your life. We can also provide information regarding other support services, and common ways of reacting to or dealing with the effects of sexual violence.

Frequently Asked Questions:

How long do you keep my emails?

We delete emails after two months. This means that if you email us more than once we will be able to see that you have contacted us before, but we don’t keep emails for longer than two months as a way to help preserve your confidentiality.

If you contact us by email, we will know what email address you contacted us from. If you do not want us to know your real email address you could set up a free anonymous email address and use it to correspond with us. Companies such as Hushmail, Yahoo and Gmail supply free email addresses.

Our service is confidential. We will not ask for your name, address or any other personal information, so unless you choose to give us this information you will remain completely anonymous (except for your email address). We will not report anything you say to any outside body (such as the police). We do discuss the emails we receive with other volunteers at Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre. This is to encourage each other to deliver a good and consistent support service. It also means that if you email more than once you are less likely to have to repeat anything you have said previously, when different volunteers reply to you.

This link gives more advice on how to hide your tracks online. Please note, the information we provide is for guidance only and it may not be possible to completely hide your tracks. If you want to be completely sure that you’re not being tracked online, the safest way would be to access the internet at a local library, a friend’s house or at work, if appropriate.

While we recognise the experiences and pain of men who have suffered any kind of sexual violence, here at Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Partnership we have found that a women-only service provision is an invaluable environment for many female service users. We recognise the need for specialist services for men and boys, and would recommend that you get in contact with Survivors UK, Safeline or the Male Survivor Consortium.

Peterborough Rape Crisis Care Group are happy to take an initial call from men or boys, and also happy to sign post you to other services.

Our helpline is available for (self-defining) women and girls, including those with complex gender identities which include ‘woman’, and those who experience oppression as women. Self-definition is at the sole discretion of the individual in question.

You can leave feedback or complaints (anonymously or not) on our form located on our Contact Us page.

Any feedback we get is treated anonymously, whether it is good or bad, and helps us to improve our service. We do sometimes use anonymous comments in reports to our funders so if you don’t want your comments to be used, please tell us.