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.

This particular funding is addressing a specific need in this area where it discovered through research certain cultural diversities being disproportionately underrepresented in access to their services and this initiative is to balance that.

Are you talking about s193? Becuase that refers to the charitable objects.

The charity needs proper legal advice (and maybe they got it, and maybe this is in fact lawful, perhaps via 158 which is general but also a higher bar).

But the idea that if a funder stipulates a restriction then it’s fine, or if it’s for a good cause the objects don’t really matter, seems quite common on this board and is just wrong.

Actually I’m curious how you see a way through EA2010 for the Huguenot example. I can’t see any plausible route for a charity that has general objects.

It’s not a clinical need though is it, it’s a cultural need.

OPs child needed help. MIND had help that was available but not to her due to her lack of ‘cultural diversity’. They’d rather keep space on their waiting list rather than help OP.

I don’t care who is funding these things. MIND and all other charities that hold themselves out as mainstream need to start saying no to funders who ask them to discriminate.

Lanyard Law. It’s Lanyard Law again.

Its legal to discriminate if the discriminator thinks so.

I absolutely did not. Somebody listed a load of ND charities and I said they weren’t anything like what MIND is offering as most are little more than web pages anybody can click on and read.

Why would any charity need to limit things by clinical need? You’ve just completely made that up.
Some charities only help veterans, some only give food help to those on benefits. Pretty much every charity in the UK is selective with its reach.

They didn’t say ‘certain cultural diversities’ (whatever that means), they said all cultural diversities so how are they targeting a specific need?

and even if it was targeting a specific group - why aren’t they listed so people would know at a glance if they qualify or not?

I’m sure it’s outlined if you were actually interested enough to read into it.

Why would it be outlined on a mumsnet post?

Isn’t that the point though. A charity can set itself up with specific criteria of who they are targeting. They fund raise on that basis and people have the right to donate accordingly if they agree with the aims of the charity.

MInd is a national general charity raising funds across the board. They are taking money off the public to address certain aims and then when someone tries to access the service then do whatever reason they say you can’t access because you don’t qualify. That’s wrong however you look at it.

Veterans have certain mental health needs specific to being in the army. I’m not aware that BAME kids have specific needs based on their skin colour.

Yes- and really interested as to why you assume they haven’t had legal advice. It’s a fairly obvious step and in all likelyhood they would’ve had to demonstrate this to win the bid.

You don’t think there would be higher mental health needs in the groups of society that experience high levels of racism and hate crimes?

And if families ( white and BAME) are being funnelled there by the NHS without provision how is it ok to then shut the door to some parents based on skin colour? What is the NHS going to offer instead whilst recognising that they can’t direct white parents to MIND now?.

If you don't like the fact that no one has bothered to bequeath and donate their money to fund work for your preferred group, then perhaps all the like minded could get together, dig deep, and start one. Just as people have done on behalf of the other groups you're objecting to.

I’m not sure that you are quite clear on my point. This charity exists to help
ALL people with their mental health. It states that in its charitable objects which is a very important mission statement lodged with the Charities Commission. Deviating from those charitable objects is a serious issue and there may be consequences.

Donations, legacies and grants etc have been made on the basis of its stated charitable objects so the charity is now lying to its donors as it is pretending it is helping ALL but it is actually refusing to help white children.

You and PPs in a desperate attempt to justify racism are making a huge assumption that this unlawful discrimination is due to conditions of a grant. No grant making authority is going to award a grant that requires a charity to go against its charitable objects. It would just find a charity that fits and make the grant to them.

It is odd that you work for a charity but don’t know how these things work. I have been trustee for several charities so maybe I have had more visibility.

Scary that you work for a women’s charity but don’t know the difference between excluding men for the safety and dignity of the women your charity serves and unlawfully refusing services to a child based on their skin colour.

You don’t think there are other groups with higher MH needs?

Some would, but the clinical outcome is there’s a kid with mental health needs. There are other white kids with mental health needs too. Why do the BAME kids get to jump the queue?

There are several groups with higher risk and MH needs so provision should be based on need not skin colour.

Their general services are publicly funded and funding has almost lapsed so they cannot take on new applicants and support the ones currently being supported, as outlined in the website.
Their targeted initiatives are privately funded and addressing specific needs tailored to each area with more targeted referrals.

The only issue, as with everything really, is not enough government funding to sustain a reasonable level of service.

Why was it fine when it was predominantly white kids availing of the services when they had data showing a large unaided clinical need for the services within the local culturally diverse communities?

No, a charity registered with the Charity Commission has to lodge their charitable objects. If they don’t operate within their charitable objects, then they are potentially committing fraud as donors and fundraisers will have provided money on the basis of their charitable objects. They could get deregistered as a charity.

Can I ask a question to those who are outraged about this service?

If the charity has not been able to secure funding to support children from all backgrounds, would you prefer to see them decline the restricted funding, shut down services altogether and support no children?

Or would you prefer that that carry on doing what they have funding to do while trying as hard as they can to raise additional funding to fill in the gaps?

The charity does of course have to comply with the Equality Act and its own governing document. However, the Equality Act - and most likely the governing document, though I haven't read it - does allow for targeted activities to support disadvantaged groups. And it's very unlikely that they would have secured a grant for the BAME services in the first place if they were unable to provide evidence of a specific need.

The phrasing around culturally diverse communities is pretty vague and poorly defined, though. Not sure if that's just clumsy wording or a deliberate attempt to fudge it so that they can squeeze as many people in under this funding as possible.

Who said that was fine?

From what I see those from ethnically diverse communities hadn’t been applying though, so where’s the need? If parents of kids from culturally diverse backgrounds can’t be bothered to do a google search that shouldn’t be held against while middle class parents who can.

The Huguenot example is used as a teaching tool and I have no desire to research it.

I would far rather they turned down funding that asked them to discriminate, yes. Hopefully those funders might stop to think about whether their motivations are ethical.