Young people call for mental health services to address racism

Mental health services in the UK are not doing enough to help people of colour deal with the impact of racism, according to a new report that called for reforming legislation to address systemic racial inequalities.

The report, from the Centre for Mental Health, the Diana Award and UK Youth, comes following a three-year programme to involve young Black people in efforts to redesign mental health support and outlines the barriers they face in accessing it.

Called Young Changemakers, the programme involved more than 100 young people aged 14 to 25 who led social action projects starting in 2021 to address mental health challenges.

“Systemic racism has resulted in discriminatory referral routes, higher criminalisation rates, and an overall lack of culturally sensitive mental health support,” according to the report, entitled ‘A Space to be me’.

Events such as the murder of George Floyd in the US and the recent anti-immigrant far-right riots in the UK underscore “the urgent need for accessible and culturally responsive mental health care,” the charities said in the report.

Anti-racism training

The report includes recommendations for how the UK government can provide more support for mental health in young Black and racialised communities.

These include reforming the UK’s Mental Health Act to address disparities faced by people of colour, expanding training for health support teams, prioritising race equity in a 10-year health plan, and collaborating with racialised communities on mental health advice.

They also called for the UK Department of Education to “integrate training on racial microaggressions and anti-racism into mandatory teacher training”.

Melvin Riley, a 22-year-old from Wolverhampton who participated in the changemaker programme, worked on such a training programme for teachers called “Not so micro”.

“We wanted to campaign for mandatory anti-racist training for teachers, so they were equipped as soon as they left university with a teaching degree to be able to be competent in supporting people from racialised communities, not just specifically the black community,” Riley told Euronews Health.

“It’s important that the systems…be reimagined for the society that we live in in 2024,” he said, adding that one of the core aspects of the programme is “allowing young people to be able to co-create the solutions needed for our community”.

Mental health inequalities

The idea behind the Young Changemakers programme was to address ongoing disparities in mental health. Young people in the UK have increasingly faced mental health issues since 2017.

The National Health Service (NHS) England released a survey last year finding that one in five children and young people in England aged eight to 25 likely had a mental health disorder in 2023.

There are also NHS reports noting the inequalities in mental health. Black adults, despite a higher prevalence of mental health issues, have the lowest treatment rate among ethnic groups, for instance.

An NHS Race and Health Observatory review on ethnic inequalities in healthcare in 2022 also noted “strong evidence of clear, very large and persisting ethnic inequalities in compulsory admission to psychiatric wards, particularly affecting Black groups, but also Mixed Black & White groups and South Asian groups,” in addition to harsher treatment for Black groups.

Some of these inequalities were “replicated” in the young population, with barriers to access, the review found.

Black children were notably 10 times more likely to be referred to mental health services via social services instead of a general practitioner.

‘The power of listening to young voices’

The new Changemakers report, which includes survey and research data from the young people involved in the three-year programme, said some of the barriers to accessing mental health help include stigma, lack of affordable or “culturally appropriate” mental health care, lack of services due to demand or fear of being judged.

The report also found that lack of representation and cultural sensitivity prevented young Black and racialised people from seeking mental health support.

“Young people with Black and Black mixed-race heritage continue to experience the deep scars of racism on their mental health, compounded by a lack of accessible and relevant support,” Dr Tessy Ojo, chief executive officer at The Diana Award, said in a statement.

“The Young Changemakers programme has shown us the power of listening to, and learning from, young voices – those who understand these challenges first-hand”.

The authors also urged the new UK government to prioritise its proposed “young futures” hubs to ensure they “have access to high-quality early mental health support”.

The report “shows the value in having young people at the heart of decision-making,” Riley told Euronews Health.

“I feel like moving forward, it will be vital and important to have young people from the black community shaping the services that are needed for them”.