---

Many pressures on mental health are disproportionately felt by people from ethnic minority backgrounds, including the rising levels of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the UK, most keenly felt in this summer’s far-right riots in England. There are major inequalities for people of minority ethnic and cultural backgrounds when it comes to education, housing, financial stability, and social support, all of which can hugely impact overall mental health. 

At the same time, many ethnic minority communities in Scotland say that they are not treated equally when they seek support, and are more likely to be ignored, mistreated, or unable to access services.  

Vongayi Mufara, Advocacy and Community Engagement Manager at Amma Birth Companions, who offer perinatal support to people dealing with barriers like language, poverty and cultural isolation, said:

“We see firsthand while supporting pregnant people the ways that people are treated unequally …People we support often feel they’re being put on conveyor belts because of their backgrounds, which makes it difficult to make decisions about their own care. We have seen people who do not speak English or who have conversational English not being provided with interpreters, or being asked to use google translate when they are in pain and are distressed. In some instances, procedures are not explained properly, and people end up giving consent without understanding what they are consenting to, or in some circumstances they might not be asked for consent at all. When asked, it’s always blamed on not understanding each other when this could have been avoided by providing an interpreter. 

“Most of these issues don’t only apply to people with a migrant background, but to people of colour in general. It doesn’t matter if you were born here or not – you still face issues like lack of attention, restriction of choice, and being ignored or disregarded. People of colour are often not listened to and we have heard testimonies where people felt ignored. Midwives come into the ward, walk right past people of colour, and start checking on the white person next to them. People often assume that you can’t speak English, and can’t be bothered to call in an interpreter, so they just ignore you.” 

This issue is particularly strongly felt where people may already be disempowered in other ways, such as with mental health struggles which are often stigmatised or used as an excuse to remove agency. People from an ethnic minority background in Scotland struggling with their mental health are more likely to be involuntarily committed to inpatient care, deal with longer wait times, and for various reasons may struggle to be heard when speaking about their experiences. 

Especially over the last few decades, as the UK immigration system has grown more hostile, mental health among people seeking asylum in Scotland is a particular concern.  

Vongayi said:

“Dealing with the Asylum system is traumatic, not mentioning the struggles that comes with being pregnant and navigating a completely different health system in a foreign land.

I have lived experience of seeking asylum, and most people in the Asylum system struggle with mental health issues due to traumatic experiences and struggling to integrate into their new communities due to culture and language differences.

People seeking Asylum aren’t allowed to work – there is £49 per week if you are living in a house and £8 per week if you are in hotel accommodation, which makes it difficult for people to afford travel to reach and build communities. Hence, they are lonely.” 

For ethnic minority communities in general, and especially for recent migrants and asylum seekers, it can be challenging to build support networks, whether because of cultural differences, language barriers, lack of social connections, anti-migrant sentiment, or simply not knowing where to look for help. 

MD Rahman, Chair of the West Lothian Community Race Forum and a current PhD candidate in global health and development at QMU, said:

‘It’s important to remember that everyone experiences mental health crises, but these topics are often not openly discussed, particularly within ethnic minority communities. In my experience, there is a lack of understanding about mental well-being in many BAME communities, especially among first- or second-generation migrant communities. There needs to be a more open dialogue about the connection between mental health and ethnic minority status 

“From a research perspective, many studies on mental health in ethnic minority communities focus on issues such as mental health in the Global South or in conflict zones. However, there is a significant number of diaspora communities living in the Global North. Despite this, when examining health inequalities, the focus tends to be on physical health rather than mental health.

“There are numerous community-led projects that often focus on relationships between ethnic minority and other communities, as well as other issues. However, there is often a reluctance to provide mental health support and raise awareness about mental health in general.

“For me, it has been very valuable to connect with Health in Mind. It seems that only Health in Mind is addressing mental health directly when it comes to outreach to ethnic minority communities.’’ 

Ksenija Kucerova, a support and development worker in Health in Mind who has been working to develop community-led ways to overcome these inequalities for ethnic minority communities, said:

“People can find mental health difficult to speak about or describe, and because ethnic minority communities tend to be quite small and close-knit, there can be that fear of being gossiped about or judged. There are a lot of stigmas around mental health, and a lot of cultural differences in what it means to have difficulty with your mental health or what you should do about it.  

“Because of that, we can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to support. People in ethnic minority communities – whether they’re Black, Asian, Eastern European, Roma, or any marginalised ethnic or cultural group – deserve support which meets them where they are, and recognises the unique challenges that different communities face.  

“That’s why peer support is so important. It’s always valuable to be able to speak to someone who is coming from a place of lived experience, but it’s especially important to get support from within your community when you’re facing often very big challenges around unequal support, language barriers, or there are big cultural differences in how you understand and express your experiences compared to how mainstream support services talk about mental health. 

“Health in Mind’s main mission is to make sure that everybody in Scotland has access to the mental health support they need, when and how they need it. That means doing more than just sitting and waiting for people to come to us – as mental health supporters, we have to be out in the community meeting people, helping connect people to each other and to support. Our job is to figure out what the barriers are to people getting adequate support, and to help break them down. 

“Peer support in ethnic minority communities has been a big part of Health in Mind’s work for a long time – back in 1997, our Men in Mind project was one of the first mental health services in Scotland to focus on supporting Black and minority ethnic men, and over time we’ve grown our support to cover a wide breadth of support for people of all genders from ethnic minority backgrounds in Edinburgh and the Lothians.” 

Health in Mind’s Ethnic Minority services include one-on-one and group peer support from other community members, as well as community outreach and support accessing other services.

MD said:

Health in Mind’s Ethnic Minority mental health support, as well as many other specialist mental health and wellbeing services in the Lothians, the Borders and Edinburgh, can be reached on 0131 225 8508, or by visiting health-in-mind.org.uk