Black and minority ethnic services case-study: Birmingham Community Development Service

A service manager was appointed to work with the Pakistani community in Small Heath, providing mental health awareness and working with other local service providers to make services more culturally appropriate.

“We based the worker within a mosque to help engage with the community – he is known and respected in the community and the mosque is a place they trust,” said area service manager Bryan Foote.

Initially the service manager worked at raising awareness by visiting GP surgeries and leaving information about mental health problems, creating a display board with information about Rethink and mental health and by doing radio programmes.

“Within this community there is a huge stigma attached to mental health. It really is seen as being a source of shame in the family, that they are being punished in some way. These are issues people keep quiet about, particularly the older members of the community. Perhaps they don’t have the language skills or they just don’t know what’s available. There isn’t culturally sensitive information about what’s available.”

In the second year of the project (2006/07), the National Institute for Mental Health in England provided a grant to conduct research about the community’s attitude to mental health.

The research has attracted a lot of interest from around the country from voluntary organisations and local authorities who heard about what Rethink is doing and have asked for assistance with their own work. The report will be launched later in 2007.

Twelve volunteers from the local community were recruited and trained in mental health issues and research techniques by the University of Central Lancashire, and conducted the interviews. They also sent questionnaires to services about take-up by people from black and minority ethnic communities.

They interviewed over 150 people in the Pakistani community of all ages – some with previous experience of mental health problems and some with none.

“In Birmingham, this is one of the communities that had the lowest record of take-up of mental health services – they just weren’t engaging at all. So we were looking at getting some real information about what the community thought about mental health issues and illness, about service provision, what they believed and knew about… We were also trying to get some information about how services could be delivered in another way that they might be more likely to engage with,” says Bryan.

Rethink plans to use the research to work with commissioners on developing new services as well as looking at existing service provision and tailoring it to meet the needs of the community.

One of the areas likely to be considered following the research is helping to meet the needs of carers in the Pakistani community.

“Traditionally they are secretive and very quiet about it, they don’t go and look for help. There’s a shame and stigma they perceive comes with mental health problems.

We think that initially carer education and carer support would be a good place to start – befriending, getting them some respite, getting them out and engaging with the community.”