About the project
Minority ethnic and migrant groups residing in the UK experience higher rates of mental illness and poorer wellbeing compared to non-minority ethnic and non-migrant groups. This pattern is also evident at regional and local levels, Sussex identifying migrant and minority ethnic groups as a priority in the ongoing development of mental health resources. Existing research has explored the feasibility and acceptability of different mental health services for migrants and minority ethnic groups, identifying language limitations and poor cultural sensitivity and humility as barriers to engagement with healthcare systems.
The growing international success of the ‘Friendship Bench’ initiative, founded by Professor Dixon Chibanda and first launched in Zimbabwe in 2006, highlights the value of community empowerment to mental health care provision through the implementation of a peer support model. The adoption of asset-based community development approaches of this kind aims to respond to growing shortfalls in mental health primary care resources in the UK, by strengthening capacity within communities and fostering associated task-sharing. Central to the Friendship Bench model is the training of community (lay) mental health workers to provide one-to-one problem-solving talking therapy from benches located in safe spaces within the community it hopes to support.
With the support of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Kent, Surrey and Sussex (KSS), a team of researchers at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) are working with Diversity Resource International, a community interest company based in Sussex supporting local minority ethnic and migrant communities, to establish a community research partnership. Together, the team will trial the Friendship Bench model in Sussex. If this pilot demonstrates the feasibility and acceptability of this model of community-led mental health support for local minority ethnic and migrant groups, next steps will involve seeking further funding to support the implementation of the intervention within the area to increase scale and spread, while also focusing on establishing its sustainability through the development of parallel peer-led support groups.
The project is jointly funded by BSMS and the NIHR ARC KSS.