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.

It has been in the news that Mind has received grants from the National Lottery specifically to provide MH support to ethnic minority communities.

If that's the funding they have, then that's what they have to do with it. They can't just change the purpose of the funds at will.

I'm sure they would welcome your fundraising support with open arms OP. Come on, get cracking on a campaign and I'm sure you can soon have them back running at full strength.

Absolutely not, the form takes you to the Leeds Mind site that has the same information. This is a service I have previously tried to refer my child for when her MH was bad.

It’s on their website. Basically they support young people who are culturally diverse, young women and non-binary people, so if you are a white young man there is not much for you. Looking at it now it will be what a pp said - what the funding stream has prioritised.
“We support young people from culturally diverse communities – anyone from a racially, culturally or ethnically diverse background.
Our peer support workers are also culturally diverse and have personal experiences of some of the specific mental health strengths, challenges and difficult experiences that can come with this.
The flexible 1-to-1 support is led by what each young person wants to get from their sessions and considers all parts of their life, including their cultural and racial identities.”

No idea, would actually like to know the actual criteria.

IF this is true and if (as you seem to be saying I think?) it’s the charity Mind, that is a massive own goal on their part. I hope someone has their wires crossed somewhere

But that’s bloody ridiculous, MH struggles don’t choose skin colour. Being ND or having experienced trauma or abuse makes you more likely to need MH support. So white abused ND children will be potentially pushed out for ethically diverse children without ND, trauma etc. Just not ok in any way. It should be based on need full stop.

There does seem a project for young women though, right at the bottom of the page?

Yes because there is an abundance of MH support available for all children ….

It sounds like they are in breach of the equality act

I had similar nearly 20 years ago when our local health service decided to remove support for breastfeeding clinics at the local community hospital as the town was middle class. I had struggled enormously with breastfeeding and found the non-judgemental clinics invaluable. [Compared to my community midwives]. I complained with good reasons. I can't have been the only person, the service was restored, for a few years anyway. But I do agree with pp this is probably grant criteria. Worth checking out the detail ie what does diverse mean in that context.

It is most likely this. I've worked for charities, and you get funding from various sources with specific spending rules. If this branch of Mind gets a grant from a funder which has specified that the funding must be spent on xyz, they will need to evidence that this has been done. Perhaps this year they've had their other funders pull out, and all they've got left is funding from a group which supports ethnic minorities. It's not ideal, but it's still better that they offer help to some people than just close down.

However, you won't be able to confirm that this is the reason unless you ask them.

There is quite a bit of research to support the notion that children from BAME or whatever term is preferred have worse mental health outcomes and more barriers to access. If you were to look at the demographics of those accessing CAMHS / MHST / third sector mental health support you can quickly see which communities are underrepresented in referrals.

The charity will have won funding to try and increase the uptake and decrease the barriers to access for under served communities.

I would tick ‘culturally diverse’ boxes and see what happens.
Although, as some are saying, this is a charity and they can choose who they want to help, but this is ridiculous!

Illegal and discriminatory, surely?
Who is funding them? Have they been reported?

But why on earth is the giver allowed to grant funds to certain ethnic groups for scarce medical treatment. If they said that they were going to limit tennis elbow ops to the middle classes because they are most susceptible there would quite rightly be outrage.

I don’t see the issue if they have identified a section of society with a greater need.

It's a charitable grant, not an NHS trust. The giver can stipulate it all goes to red haired Italians called Arnold if it so pleases them.

That’s ridiculous. There is no help anywhere. Children with ND and trauma are more likely to need support which is lacking everywhere. Suicide rates are hugely higher in the NDcommunity. Are you telling me a BAME NT young person should be prioritised over a white ND young person who has experienced severe trauma.

Exactly this. It’s outrageous.

If that’s the case the NHS funding should be prioritised for the other groups to smooth access out, obviously.

You're completely free to fundraise enough so that they can offer support to white ND children if you feel there's a gap.

Will backfire the moment a white rape victim goes to the media saying they were turned down for support. Then Farage will gleefully put it in his leaflets.

Because mental health support for ethnic minority children is poor. BAME people are under served and face more barriers.

A study has shown BAME children experience
intimidating treatment due to racial stereotypes held by professionals. Another study reported that young men believed that they would be
treated differently by mental health services based on colour or race.

It’s disappointing that these kids don’t concern you at all.

Yeah, where does it say it isn't supporting British people?

There are plenty of cultures within Britain. Some of them are white, just in a minority. I'm in a minority ethic group and I'm white. And born in the UK.

Anyway I guess they identified those in most need in their area and had to make a decision to serve them only as their funders won't support them otherwise.

It’s well known white seaside towns have higher rates of poverty, MH difficulties, atrocious funding and worse outcomes - so they get nothing because they’re not big multi cultural cities.