The Ten Essential Shared Capabilities

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• Race equality and cultural capability
  • 1. How BME service users have experienced mental health services
  • 2. Key factors from this overall experience
  • 3. Defining race and culture
  • 4. Breaking the Circles of Fear
  • 5. An organisational focus on change
  • 6. A holistic approach as the key to assessment
  • 7. Delivering race equality
  • 8. Links to further learning
  • 9. Definitions
  • 10. Legal Context - Race

4. Breaking the circles of fear

There are many reasons for the over-representation of BME people in mental health services and their experience of different standards and outcomes in service delivery. Social and political factors play their part as do issues concerning power, economic disadvantage and social exclusion.

Here, we will look at how interpersonal racism may be constructed and how this impacts on certain aspects of mental health work. This is important because mental health work involves close interaction with people. Successful engagement depends on good interpersonal relationships and awareness of self.

Breaking the Circles of Fear (The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health 2002) cites fear as a major factor that determines the relationship of mental health services with African Caribbean people.

The three key themes that emerged from this research were:

1. There are circles of fear that stop Black people from engaging with services.
2. Mainstream services are experienced as inhuman, unhelpful and inappropriate.
3. Problematic care pathways of Black people influence the type and outcome of treatment and the willingness of these communities to engage with mainstream services.

The way an individual views other people plays a significant part in the way risk assessments and diagnosis are conducted. Therefore, in this section we propose to ‘deconstruct’ (unpick) the manner in which fear may be involved in our responses to difference.