IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH OUTCOMES FOR YOUNG BLACK MEN IN COVENTRY AND WARWICKSHIRE

Summary

The Young Black Men’s Service is run by Coventry, Warwickshire and Worcestershire Mind and aims to increase young black men’s engagement with preventative mental health support.

Support is delivered in both 1:1 and group settings in a tailored and culturally appropriate way, to build confidence amongst a demographic who have historically had low engagement rates with mental health services.

The service has already shown impressive results, with excellent feedback from both the young people referred into the service and from the professionals who support them.

Why change was needed

Young black men have historically had low engagement rates with preventative mental health services. It has also been identified that there was an increased number of black men, both young and middle aged, accessing mental health services.

In addition, young black men often face challenges talking about mental health and accessing mental health support, for example due to the stigma attached to it in certain cultures. 

There is also an under-representation of black men working in mental health services, meaning that black men who were accessing support felt a disconnect with the people trying to support them, creating difficulties in expressing themselves and talking about problems they may experience because of their race or cultural background.

What we did

The Young Black Men’s project was created by Coventry, Warwickshire and Worcestershire Mind to address some of the challenges that young black men face when accessing mental health services.

The service is available to young men aged 11-30 from Black heritage backgrounds, is free to access, delivered across schools, community spaces and places of worship, and designed to be culturally appropriate. Referrals can be made by anyone, including the young men themselves, their parent/carers or professionals who work with them.

The service offers a range of bespoke interventions, including 1:1 and group sessions, for young black men across Coventry and Warwickshire that aim to support them with talking about and accessing support for their mental health and wellbeing.

In addition, there is support available for parents and carers, targeted workshops, taster sessions for professionals, stakeholder presentations, resource distribution, community engagement events, and multidisciplinary team meetings that all work towards offering mental health advice, information and support for young black men, their families and the professionals who support them.

The Young Black Men’s Service has been created for young black men by young black men. This means the service is tailored to the specific needs of the communities they are aiming to support and delivered in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way. The outreach workers and mentors who provide the support are black men themselves, meaning they can relate to the young men who are accessing the service and better understand the challenges they face.

So far, the service has delivered support to 65 young black men and engaged further 675 individuals, primarily from Black communities. through indirect activities such as workshops and community events.

In year 1, 90.7% of young men using the service improved their mental wellbeing as measured by the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. In addition, feedback on the service has been extremely positive, with 100% of respondents saying their mental health had improved, 100% saying they felt listened to and respected and 96.9% saying they felt less alone or isolated as a result of the support they’ve received.

What’s next?

The service is currently in the process of expanding, including adding two new team members that will allow the service to support more young people.

They are also looking at how to improve the legacy of the service, including how to support young people who access the service into education and employment.

Exit pathways are also being developed that allow the young people to continue to work with support services, including by accessing the mentor programme that is part of the service. The service is also looking at how young people with lived experience can offer support to young people.

Finally, the service is looking at how they can use the knowledge and experience they have gained to help influence and inform other organisations and decision makers within Coventry and Warwickshire, including by setting up a Youth Board made up of young people and by engaging with and working alongside black organisations, businesses, and groups across the area.