Report: Mental Health Needs of People Seeking Asylum and Refugees
We are delighted to launch this new report, 'Mental Health Needs of People Seeking Asylum and Refugees', which was developed in partnership with The Comfrey Project, Gateshead Wellbeing Champions, Gateshead Community Bridge Builders, and Connected Voice's Haref team. This work was funded and made possible by the Gateshead Community Mental Health Transformation Grants.
This report is aimed primarily at professionals in the health and social care sector, and we hope for it to be used to facilitate dialogue between those accessing services and those providing services.
The project
The Comfrey Project is a place where refugees and people who are seeking asylum can come to learn new skills, share what they know with others, and begin to build a better life. This year-long research project began with the development of The Comfrey Project's Wellbeing Champions scheme, which seeks to influence positive change 'from within'. Wellbeing Champions aim to help their communities improve their knowledge, resilience and self-reliance by equipping members with all the necessary information, skills, connections, and confidence.
The Comfrey Project ultimately recruited 11 Wellbeing Champions, and in October 2023 they started hosting bespoke Wellbeing Drop-Ins.
For this project, we ran two focus groups with the Wellbeing Champions which were facilitated by our team here at Connected Voice Haref:
- Focus group 1 looked at health and wellbeing issues and identified key themes to be explored further
- Focus group 2 examined mental health services in key service delivery areas
The report highlights the key issues raised through the focus groups and the solutions proposed to address these.
The key issues were around the themes of:
- Stigma and fear
- Language and cultural barriers
- Support specific to refugees and people seeking asylum
- Awareness and information
The four key service areas that were looked at were:
- GP practices
- Statutory mental health services
- A&E departments/hospitals
- Communities/charities
Examples of potential solutions included:
- Increased cultural awareness from practitioners, services, schools and students
- Use of religious buildings, charities, community venues and more to put on activities/groups to support people to meet others and thus improve mental health and wellbeing
- Information sessions for asylum seekers and refugees around parenting, rules in the UK, the role of social and mental health services, cultural differences and more
The report is full of useful, practical information about barriers to accessing mental health services and solutions to improve accessibility and practices for asylum seekers and refugees.
For the full Wellbeing Champions report and findings, see here
The Wellbeing Champions presented the report at the Haref Network meeting in October 2023, and again at the Haref Allies Skills Building Session in November 2023. Haref facilitated discussions between health practitioners and the Wellbeing Champions at the Skills Building Session, and they agreed upon the following recommendations:
- Cultural Competency training to address unconscious bias in workforce
- Better representation in consultation groups when designing services
- More training and awareness of the asylum system, which is particularly important due to the current political climate
- Services that reflect the changing populations and receive guidance on how to adapt
- Service providers with lived experience embedded in the system
- Signposting new arrivals to relevant local charities as a key to wellbeing
- Presenting services to community groups
- Producing easy-read leaflets with relevant and representative images
For more information on the Skills Building discussion, see here
Next steps
The Wellbeing Champions will be supported to develop these materials into a workshop and will be organising a participatory event in Gateshead, to take place Summer 2024.
The Wellbeing Champions will also continue to develop the report, and add relevant case studies to help better illustrate the points it covers.
Connected Voice Haref will also be sharing the report and follow-up discussions with all our key contacts in the NHS, local authorities, and in mental health services.
For more information on this research/project, contact Peter Casson at info@thecomfreyproject.org.uk or Connected Voice Haref at haref@connectedvoice.org.uk
