To receive two presentations themed on the health of Croydon’s black community and Black History Month.
Minutes:
The Chair introduced the item and stated that there were two speakers. She firstly invited Dr Kevin Vento to address the Board.
Dr Kevin Vento stated that he was the psychosis lead for Croydon South London and Maudsley (SLaM) services for adult mental health and that he would be speaking on both the Croydon Health and Wellbeing Space, which was in the process of being launched, and black mental health. He detailed the following:
· A common misconception was the black people, particularly black men, did not benefit from mental health services. However there were challenges in engaging the black community with mental health services.
· It was known that black communities struggled engaging with primary care services, and the difficulty was in the first step in getting help where they were underrepresented, which needed to be improved. Black communities were overrepresented in secondary care services.
· A black person is almost three times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act, which as a statistic had not changed in the past 20 years.
· The NHS Long Term Plan included embedding services within the community and for community to work closer together. The Croydon Health and Wellbeing Space was a collaboration between Mind in Croydon, the Croydon BME Forum and SLaM.
· Dr Vento stated that he would be the clinical lead for the Space, which would be based at the Whitgift Centre, and he expressed his optimism for a true partnership going forward.
· The site would be open seven days a week and have an open door policy to maximise engagement and be an inviting venue. This initial engagement would then increase the access to secondary health services. As well as sign-posting, the Space would run in-house services and groups to support residents coping with traumas.
· The Space will be a service to fit the community and an accessible place, staffed by local people and link to local churches and other community groups.
The Chair thanked Dr Vento for his introduction and invited questions from the Board.
Councillor Yvette Hopley praised the idea and the model to provide services to people within the community, staffed by members of those communities the service users would feel comfortable to share their experiences with. She expected the Space to be a success story for Croydon and said the message needed to be shared with residents and associations that this site was operating and what services it provided.
Sarah Burns, CVA Head of Communities, welcomed the approach and stated that the ambition was positive. She said there were a few questions that needed to be considered in the early stages of development; firstly, in how the wider voluntary sector would be able to work with the BAME community, and secondly, how they would connect people struggling with mental health issues to the Health and Wellbeing Space. She said there were possible solutions to those, adding that one that should be considered was that the Mental Health Alliance. This Alliance would soon be launching which would be bringing together grassroots groups who had been working hard for years across Croydon to establish reputations and already worked with BAME communities. Another model to join up was the localities operating model within One Croydon.
In response, Dr Vento agreed that this provision should be inclusive of all other services and communities available in the borough. He stated that Croydon was a strikingly diverse borough, across heritage and religion with over 100 languages spoken, and the drive was to provide services that enabled residents to connect better and were fit for everyone.
Ima Miah, Asian Resource Centre CEO, agreed that the work should greater connect to the wider voluntary sector. Secondly, she raised concern over ‘black’ and ‘BAME’ being used interchangeably within this discussion – which risked excluding other communities, particular in light that Asian communities were also pressing for recognition of mental health. There were different understandings of mental health in different communities, where religion also was a factor; for instance in the Asian community a person may look to seek help from an Imam instead of a doctor, and different solutions may be discussed, such as marriage in some cases. In another example, it might be that Polish communities may not seek help from an advertising campaign that only presented black and brown service users. She reiterated the importance of the need to be inclusive of all communities to maximise engagement and outcomes.
Rachel Flowers, Director of Pubic Health, stated that it needed to be recognised that there were both operational and strategic considerations to address the deep seated inequalities around racism and discrimination in BAME communities, which captured a whole range of people and experiences. As a Board, they would not be able to solve the issues immediately, however the addition of this Space would be a welcome contribution to the large tapestry of services which have been developing and established within Croydon. She noted that there were a vast range of needs and types of engagement required around Croydon. She thanked Dr Vento for his presentation and commended his work.
Dr Agnelo Fernandez, Vice Chair, stated that the Space reflected great work in trying to address some of the issues previously highlighted. He agreed that there was a lot more to do across board, however particularly in underrepresented communities. It was clear that in relation to this piece of work, that specifically working with the black community around psychosis was long past due, without excluding others. It was clearly important to act inclusively, but this work would also teach lessons in addressing similar issues in other communities to go forward effectively and utilise resources efficiently.
Dr Kevin Vento thanked the Board for their feedback and echoed the emphasis on inclusivity being key to the work. He stated that their approached would be transparent and accessible to ensure the service could be used by anyone.
The Chair thanked Dr Vento for his update to the Board, and next invited the colleagues from Croydon Health Services to speak on the item.
Leila Howe, Croydon Health Services, outlined the following:
· Speaking as part of the steering group which run alongside the Asian Minority Staff Network in Croydon, she thanked NHS colleagues for supporting their success as a network
· Messaging from staff within the network was that if you were BAME in Croydon, sometimes an experience would not be as good as white counterparts and that issues needed to be addressed
· When the aims and objectives of the network were drafted, they wanted to tackle issues as well as hosting cultural events, three being: bullying and harassment at work, lack of career progression and the recruitment process.
Andrew Brown, BME Forum, stated that by the end of the week over 40 BME events would have taken place in Croydon. He thanked everyone who had supported the Forum over this period.