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.

Is this legal? If so why is it legal?

@Mindcultural

I don't know if you spotted my previous suggestion.

If your child needs this service, tick the 'traveller' or the 'mixed race other' option.

We're constantly told that there's no such thing as indigenous British people, so that means we're all mixed race. 🤷

Play then at their own game. None of the people involved will have the guts to call you out on your declared race.

Oooh. Do we really think she has to claim to have any settled traveller roots? Surely she could just ‘identify as’ a settled traveller?

Its a standard email. The charity only has this funding stream for referrals so anyone who wants to make a referral is sent the standard email with a link so they can fill in a form so their eligibility is checked. I'm actually amused that people have so little understanding of the capacity of charities they think they have spare staff and volunteers picking over referrals to identify 'middle class vibes'. And what exactly does that mean anyway? Are you one of these people who believe that people who are WC and not white can't express themselves as the middle classes do?

Middle class vibes = Edward from Headingly not Jaxxon from Burmantofts.

Yes, it's legal! Equality Act allows charities to preferentially service clients with shared protected characteristics (in this case, ethnicity and/or belief, but NB skin colour never qualifies) if they can demonstrate a need (Positive Action exemption).

The wording chosen suggests they are relying on this exemption to focus effort on a range of groups, each of which is in a minority with respect to ethnicity and/or belief. Some of those people will be white. Most people falling outside this criterion will also be white (because this is a majority white country). This is not illegal, because its not deliberately based on skin colour, but it is capable of being misrepresented, as this thread proves.

They should have been more upfront about the actual criteria for the exemption being applied. Being in a minority is not a protected characteristic in itself.

It’s wrong. A child whose parents cannot afford treatment may not qualify however a child from an ethnic minority family whose parents own 4 properties abroad and have 100k in the bank here so could afford to pay privately may qualify.

The system expects people to play by the rules - stop playing and tick the box you need to get the service.

What happens if you say ‘I don’t want to say’ about your sex, age, background. Does that mean you do not get treatment either?

Tbh I think this is really wrong and I’ll be looking at which political parties that would remove this barrier for children. All should be treated equally regardless of their heritage or belief. We are really letting down kids in the UK (rape gangs are high on my radar, now mental health - maybe the young white women who were raped as children should be a high priority for mental health charities but I bet they don’t qualify either even if under 16). It is wrong.

Another example that springs to mind is if a group of children witness a stabbing or an accident and they require support from this service.

Parents call and fill in the form some children will qualify purely due to heritage, others don’t qualify because they are seen, presumably, as privileged that’s disgusting.

You realise a lot of this is in your own head @43percentburnt ? You’re making up scenarios and finding them unacceptable.

This is one small charity, and one programme within a charity at that. You’re expecting them to solve all the problems of all young people? How about looking for parties who have or will invest in young people’s mental health services so charities don’t have to restrict services or cut staff (as this one has). How about looking for parties that focus on improving education, safety, public health and employment? Maybe volunteer if you feel so strongly.

How about charities and the government provide services fairly, rather than segregating based upon skin colour, etc?

Its weird isn't it. Judging children by the colour of their skin.

Unless there is an obvious reason why children from ethnic minorities do not have equal access to services, deciding on provision on the colour of their skin is racist. White kids, presumably, are not dark enough.

If there are barriers to accessing services which are more common in some groups, then focus on those barriers. (Poverty, poor school attendance, alcoholic parents etc.) I understand a concern about middle class parents with sharp elbows crowing out others when it comes to accessing some services. But you don't define class by skin colour.

Equality of access means sometimes it is ‘fair’ to target some resources at specific communities.

There is nothing unfair about what this organisation is doing and there’s no evidence that skin colour is a factor at all. Some of you have wonderful imaginations.

But you don't define class by skin colour.

Nobody is.

Why then decide on access by skin colour.

I was trying to be kind and suggest that someone naïve was using skin colour as a proxy for class, as there might be justification for targeting the most needy. I really hope we have got to a point where we treat kids equally and allocate services on the basis of need.

This - although I would use background or heritage as I doubt this is about skin colour - all access should be equal for all young people regardless of background.

As for volunteering time and donating to worthwhile causes - of course I do! Not that it’s relevant if tax payers money is involved.

I believe that if this provider is taking ANY tax payers money all children should benefit equally.

If it’s purely funded by people’s donations and is open and honest about who will benefit from those donations then fair enough. People can choose to donate or not. And those that cannot access via the charity can use the NHS mental health services which will presumably have less pressure.

It is this type of practice that causes division in society. All kids should be equal and a child’s needs should be the priority.

The government doesn’t, which is how you end up with situations like these. They stopped all referrals, due to lack of funds/staff . Separate funding ( very likely private) was given to support specific groups, which is why they still have some staff left/can provide a limited number of services. If they misappropriate this funding , legally they would be in serious hot water and shut down doors for everyone.

It’s an incredibly fucked up situation, don’t get me wrong, but would it really be better if they helped no one? Because the funding isn’t there for everyone.

Don't charities realise this can rebound? A local museum/charity proposed building on some public green space so that they could provide training for ethnic minority gardeners. (Yes really.) My guess was that they had access to some capital monies (CIL) and wanting to use it to create a future revenue stream, in part to secure their jobs. As a neighbour who regularly walked through the green space I was unhappy, but was also curious at their use of "ethnic minority". It was as if they were playing the race card to preserve their nice middle class jobs. I would have been far more sympathetic if they had suggested local NEETs or kids from deprived backgrounds, or people with disabilities.

I don't know if neighbours shared these concerns. We all objected on green space grounds....and won.

They aren’t using skin colour to decide anything.

What does culturally diverse communities mean then? Are you suggesting it is target people who have Italian or Greek heritage?

If you’d bothered to research before pontificating you’d know that this project isn’t using taxpayers money, and nor is it using donations from individuals, and that the charity has had to let staff go not is it funding because of lack of funding. They are not selecting anyone based on skin colour, or even heritage, as far as we can tell. The have funding available for young people from culturally diverse communities who have experienced trauma, which could very likely mean access is based on postcode. We simply don’t know the exact criteria.

What we do know is that, in average, people from some ethnic groups are more likely to live in poor areas and more likely to experience trauma. Targeting a limited pot of funding towards people most likely to need it seems very reasonable. Ensuring that the people in that group activity have some shared experience also seems sensible, though not essential.

The charity has other programmes that are targeted at specific groups, including one for over 50s, but nobody seems upset about that. Weird.

The charity has other programmes that are targeted at specific groups, including one for over 50s, but nobody seems upset about that. Weird.

Why weird. No one was objecting to a programme targeting young people. Why should they object to another programme targeting people over the age of 50.

You seem unusually defensive. Are you running the programme? If so you might take a second out and consider what people are saying.

So you don’t mind certain age groups being targeted, but you’re unhappy that certain communities are. How does that make sense?

I’m nothing to do with the organisation and nothing that’s being said here is new. It’s a shame people can’t imagine anything beyond their own world, or bother to research it. Instead you accuse someone who is presenting the facts of being defensive.

It’s not clear what you objected to, or what you thought you won? What’s your objection to ethnic minority gardeners?

I don't think this particular story is about economic need, but about a charity using the law on positive action to preferentially assist clients with demonstrable needs arising from their membership of particular ethnic and/or belief communities: this is legal. Because this is a majority white country, those excluded from assistance will be mostly white: this is also legal (because the exclusion criterion was not skin colour, which can never be legal).

Charities can't help all of the people all of the time, and it's only thanks to positive action that they can operate as they do at all (or Age UK would have to become 'Everyone UK'!).

My main concern is that people working in the sector don't have a good grasp of this, so they lack rigor in their language and come across as patronising to target client groups and hostile to those groups who, at population level, are less likely to need help. This is an absolute gift to majoritarian agitators.

Disingenuous not.

The local objection was to building on public green space.

I also felt uncomfortable that this community loss was justified by the promise of benefits to ethnic minority young people, when there was no obvious reason why equally deserving ethnic majority young people should be excluded. It felt like racism.