The History of The Lateef Project

The Recent Years

In 2019, The Lateef Project secured funding to develop a service in West London in addition to its work in Birmingham. This was initially to support the people affected by the Grenfell Fire, as a result of the fire of June 2017, 80% of the people bereaved were Muslim. In the days that followed the fire several people trained in Islamic Counselling were under the arches of the Westway flyover supporting people who had been affected by the fire. It was clear that there was work that Islamic Counselling could do through The Lateef Project and though applications were made to the local authorities for funding to set up a local service, these were stuck in the same political crossfire that many other possible initiatives got caught in. 

The Lateef Project independently approached the Tudor Trust, a local charity with a proposal, this was agreed and negotiations took place between The Lateef Project, the local authority and the local NHS at the end of 2019. By March 2020, the team were in place, policies and procedures prepared but none of the over 300 referrals were passed on to The Lateef Project. 

Covid-19 then struck. With the first lockdown The Lateef Project had a service ready for the people affected by the fire, however there were no means of them accessing the service and a bigger crisis in the community caused the pandemic. With the agreement of The Tudor Trust, we refocussed the work to address Muslim mental health in the pandemic and the absence of statutory services, we took everything online. 

We developed the website as a means of accessing counselling and offered Islamic counselling to the Birmingham and London regions and without advertising, the service waited. First there was no real response but in 3 to 4 months, The Lateef Project was engaging all the trained Islamic counsellors it could find. The work focussed on the London and Birmingham regions, but referrals were coming in from across the country and including Wales. 

When the Health Secretary announced the Government Community Grant, The Lateef Project secured funding for Islamic counsellors to work with bereaved Muslims across England to try to address some of the wider need. The first year of the pandemic was a difficult time for The Lateef Project. Many of our clients’ experiences were unimaginable. There were more clients than we could support. Our own team was also impacted by the virus. We served the community in trust of Allah. 

As the pandemic continued we also, in partnership with Inspirited Minds and The NHS Muslim Network provided Islamic counselling to Muslim NHS frontline staff in the second wave of the pandemic supporting people who were saving and protecting our communities. 

The Lateef Project was also fortunate to work with the University of Westminster Psychology department on qualitative research concerning Islamic counselling. Though this work has not been published as yet, it joins the published quantitative research evidence on our work.   

Thinking that with a one in a hundred years pandemic that that was it – we then saw what happened with the evacuation of Afghanistan In August 2021. By October 2021 a small team of 2 to 3 Islamic counsellors were also providing counselling, on location in a London hotel with 700 Afghan sanctuary seekers. Between October 2021 and March 2022, The Lateef Project worked with 7% of the Adults in English and Dari and through interpreters in Pashto. In March these clients were relocated outside of the hotel generally across the country. The Lateef Project continued working with the clients that were most at risk.  

In 2022 Through direct funding from NHS East London Trust. The Lateef Project was able to set up a specific localised service covering Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets for 1 year providing three part-time counsellors working in English, Turkish, Sylheti and Urdu. 

Following this in addition to the counselling work The Lateef Project has begun to campaign in relation to Muslims Mental Health, over the last year we have also written several papers on Islamic counselling. This work is part of our effort to change more than the well-being of each client we work with; it is how we work to improve the way that Muslims experiencing mental health problems are engaged with by the NHS.