Limiting MH support to certain cultural areas?

[Mindcultural]

I have today received this message below from a mental health support service for young people.

AIBU to think it’s completely wrong to offer support based on cultural diversity and would like to know how they decide who fits this criteria?

Hi,

I’m getting touch as you have recently made a referral to our Youth In Mind services on behalf of a child or young person.

Unfortunately, we are having to reduce the size of the team for funding reasons, so we now only have funding to support young people from culturally diverse communities, if this is relevant for the individual you referred to us, please can I ask that you complete this form forms.office.com and we will be back in touch accordingly.

If we are now no longer able to offer support to the individual you have made a referral for, please accept our apologies for this. Please feel free to keep an eye on our website for updated information regarding available services as we are always looking for new funding opportunities to allow us to reach more children and young people.

Again, you’re not looking at need if you think ‘this child is less likely to be deprived because x y z etc’ rather than actually looking at the facts about that child’s situation. You’re making assumptions.

No, it’s not ditto. You are so dismissive of the experiences of black and Asian kids. You really don’t care, do you?

And no apology from you for trying to misuse statistics there?

Have you heard of unconscious bias...it is hugely hard on all the avaliable evidence for services to operate on the bases of need...supremacy wins out...which is why this project is needed and privately funded

How odd to donate to a charity without understanding what they do with the money. Always wise to educate yourself.

It would be better if they said the service was not open to those in the top 20% of income. High earners who are highly taxed but probably still have enough left over to go private. That sort of criteria would be better. But you’re still making an assumption about a parents ability to afford it which isn’t great.

I think we have heard about your individual circumstances quite a lot on this thread haven’t we?

So a charity that is set up for a particular community’s challenges needs to drop its work and centre white people?

From what I understand , Leeds has their own culturally diverse team for children having issues from racism , discrimination , identity etc . It sounds like only that team is accepting new referrals (possibly due to still having capacity) so isn’t necessarily discriminatory.

I have done lots of training in unconscious bias in my workplace, and lots on ethics too. Which is a bit unnecessary in my line of work, but I would have thought it would be bread and butter for those working in a charity having to select who to help. Isn’t it? Is unconscious bias and ethics not something they understand?

This made me laugh. You and those who think like you wouldn’t donate a penny anyway.

No. It needs to stop accepting money from funders that ask them to racially discriminate. Or would you rather they kept on racially discriminating?

This- it’s surprising people feel so very strongly but not strongly enough to check the charities published reporting.

It’s on their website. How much clearer do they need to be. Next new project funded may be for men with red hair and 1 leg.

funders have limited pots of money and can choose where they want to give it and that’s their right. If MIND don’t win bids they’ll not be able to offer any services at all.

They’re almost certainly putting out applications every week for a whole range of projects for all cohorts but they can only apply for what’s being offered by funders and available money and the number of grants have dropped drastically

if they done get grants they can’t help anyone.

look at the national lottery, they’re very specific who they fund too and very very rarely are grants open to anyone

the only way that a charity can support everyone is if their funding is unrestricted and that means it’s not part of a grant. So that’s your marathons, cake sales, legacy donations. Sponsored walks. That money. So if the Leeds general public can come up with enough money for MIND to have decent levels of unrestricted income you could reasonably expect them to deliver a universal service but until then they can only do what the money being offered to them demands of them

Perhaps stealth is not the best word here - perhaps bias and blind spots would be better. Taking a different kind of discrimination, when women seek healthcare, they may feel like the treatment they were offered was ok. But we know that certain health conditions are massively under diagnosed in women, levels of pain in women are routinely rated lower than those of men, and outcomes are generally worse. We also know that most of the medical research that treatment is based on is focused on the "average patient" who is male. But that male and female bodies work differently, so women are routinely disadvantaged by this. And that funding and prioritization of health care is done by certain bodies and groups of people who are likely to be overwhelmingly male or working from assumptions that favour men. But who may be largely unaware of this. This is what I mean by stealth. But that word implies more agency than I think actually happens - I think it is more likely that the person or people making those decisions may think they are being perfectly fair but the data shows us that there is a problem here.

This is a similar process - but with race as a focus rather than sex.

They have been listed twice upthread. How long will sea lioning go on for? It’s tedious.

OMG! this again.
So let's go further - why stop at charity only, let's ensure these pesky 20% top income who pay 70% of all tax take and subsidise the rest of the country aren't allowed to use NHS at all. They probably can afford to go private. Who cares if they can't.

I’ve worked in mental health funding and contracts for 13 years, so no, not quite a perfect understanding - but enough to know when something’s racist/discriminatory, and when it isn’t.

And think how much worse it is for a BAME parent, sometimes with English as a second language, living in an often hostile country that begrudges support, of having to navigate that system. To use your favourite statistic - it’s ten times worse.

I haven't seen any. There were references to National Trust and Trans charity, but they do not exclude based on race at all.

So can you share any example of exclusion?

I didn’t say I agreed with it. I’m one of the top 20% and would rather public services were truly universal and I’d quite like child benefit so I could afford to fund my child’s occupational therapy (ASD) myself. But hey, it would be more understandable if they discriminated based on income rather than skin colour.

Looks like none of it sank in for you.

I haven't seen any either. Probably because there aren't any

I think you’ll find if you’ve worked in mental health funding for 13 years you’ll be steeped in prejudices and anti-white-NT-middle-class-heterosexual-‘cis’-discrimination.

It’s been repeatedly explained and linked to explain why charity support is often much less accessible for BAME parents and kids. How many times do I have to link it before it seems people are taking the piss?

If you say so.