Coming to university can be a bit overwhelming, especially when Brighton might feel a little different from the place you grew up in. The Therapeutic Service’s new Race & Belonging Support Group is designed to create a safe and accepting space to consider your experiences related to race, colour and everything in between.

At the Counselling Services, we’ve noticed that students were coming to us with similar feelings around race and colour. These are often related to feeling like the ‘only one’, feeling lonely and isolated, feeling stereotyped and misunderstood, and sometimes direct struggles with racism.

We are all designed to seek out feelings of belonging and connection. So, when this comes under threat, we as humans can really begin to struggle.

We wanted to create a new therapeutic group where students wouldn’t have to make an effort to feel understood. We wanted a mini community where you could feel surrounded by other people who ‘get it’.

We wanted to offer a space where someone might feel supported in sharing how frustrating and painful it is to be asked ‘where they’re really from?’ for the second time that week. Or how minimising it feels to be asked – why are you making this about race, again? When we know that that’s exactly what it is about.

So if we all know that racism exists, what can we do about it?

In this group, we hope to move away from minimising our experiences to make others feel more comfortable.

We hope to explore, share and process what race and colour can feel like. But not only that – also come up with strategies and skills to survive and support people struggling with these experiences in our student community.

How can you harness your joy as an act of personal rebellion? What does self-love mean to you? How do you choose when to engage and when to stay strong in silence?

Come find out more by joining our Race & Belonging Support Group meeting on Friday 4 November 2022, 2-3.30pm in Woodland room 4 at the Student Centre.

Email counsellingreception@sussex.ac.uk to join our group. We look forward to welcoming you and seeing you there!