News

New challenge to ‘oppressive’ mental health care

Mental health services and community groups are being offered help and funds by a major charity to improve standards of mental health care for black people.

The three-year project ‘Breaking the Circles of Fear’, launched by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, will pump £250,000 into schemes designed to challenge racial discrimination in mental health care.

The scheme aims to give black people a stronger voice in how mental health services are run as well as supporting mental health workers in improving care. Projects are likely to include setting up local agencies to foster better communication between black communities and mental health services, providing training for black user groups and offering leadership training to black staff in statutory and voluntary organisations to bolster skills and confidence.

Chief executive of the SCMH Matt Muijen said research showed black people often found mental health services oppressive and unhelpful. Black people were three times more likely than white people to be forcibly treated while they were less likely to be offered ‘talking’ therapies.

Project manager Errol Francis said the scheme would help black communities and mental health services work together locally, often for the first time, to deliver better care.

‘It is not about imposing a single blueprint on every service around the country,’ he said. ‘It is more about overcoming the mutual fear that so badly damages relations between staff and patients.’