Minority voices: Research into the access and acceptability of ... - MMC

factors that study participants identified as helpful in service provision and in facilitating accessto mental health support and engagement with staff.A complementary report, Minority Voices: A guide to good practice in planning and providingservices for the mental health of young people from Black and minority ethnic communities 6 isbased on the findings of this study.Key findingsFrom the mapping of services: a very mixed picture of activity emerges, suggesting thatsome parts of the country are quite active in developing services for young people from Blackand minority ethnic groups - and of forging links with community services - whereas othershave little or no specific provision.From the in-depth study of four sample areas: a wide range of concerns about existingmental health service provision and problems in accessing services was reported by bothyoung people and staff alike. It is salient to note that many of these concerns, difficulties andareas of unmet need echo those documented in the literature. This suggests that althoughclearly in some parts of the country progress is being made, the impact of the significantinvestment in CAMHS in recent years has yet to be felt amongst many young people fromBlack and minority ethnic communities. More positively the fieldwork also revealed examplesof innovative practice that were proving effective in promoting service access for young peopleand plenty of ideas and suggestions for how services should be developed in the future.Key issuesThe issues emerging from the Minority Voices study can, to some extent, be presented in twocategories:• How to reach and engage with young people from Black and minority ethnic groups whomay require help from mental health services.• What needs to happen to aid the development of effective service provision for youngpeople from Black and minority ethnic groups.! Reaching young peopleThroughout the study, a recurrent problem was actually making contact with young peoplefrom Black and minority ethnic groups. This was either because only a few were presenting toservices (noted by a considerable number of CAMHS staff), or because of a fear, expressed bymany young people, of talking about their experiences. Concerns about confidentiality, havinginsufficient time to get to know and to trust staff and the stigma of accepting help from mentalhealth services were the reasons often given. For some CAMH services struggling with highnumbers of referrals, only limited time could be given in helping the research team to makecontact with young people which also affected the number who were eventually recruited tothe study.Another difficulty encountered was that of voluntary sector projects working with young peopleclosing down, often due to funding instability. On a number of occasions the research teamidentified and made contact with services that appeared to be supporting young people fromminority ethnic groups only to find that either the service had already closed or was trying tofind alternatives for its clients since it was facing this threat. As one might expect in suchcircumstances, maintaining contact with some young people was extremely difficult to achieve.From the interviews undertaken, it was apparent that many young people had very limitedawareness or understanding of CAMHS and thus, how they might access these services. Theirunderstanding of what is meant by ‘mental health’ was poor, with many talking of mentalhealth in terms of madness, or very serious illness, and as such, something that they did notsee as applicable to them. Some also expressed a mistrust of services and professionalsand/or fear of being labelled ‘mad’ as a result of accessing support. These difficultiesMinority Voices Research Report4