Using co-production within mental health training when working with refugee or migrant community groups

This paper will discuss examples of mental health training developed and co-produced in active partnership with two communities, one in Britain and one in Sri Lanka. This work has taken place in community settings, not within the consulting room. The learning had a bi-directional flow; through these partnerships, both partners/groups shared and developed their understanding of diverse cultures, idioms of distress, explanatory mental health models and ways of dealing with these. This expanded everyone’s knowledge, understanding and repertoires of practice. The work in Britain was audited through a range of psychometric tests and that in Sri Lanka through questionnaires. Semi-structured interviews also took place with both groups as did meetings with a range of key informants.

Working beyond the clinic can benefit people, who have obliquely been labelled, as ‘hard to reach’ groups and who may find it difficult to access mental health services or who find services inappropriate. Therefore, community groups may be well positioned to bridge this gap in non-stigmatising, accessible and culturally appropriate ways. Evidence has begun to emerge suggesting that mental health services developed in conjunction with service users and the wider community may lead to better usage, more appropriate and accessible services, and to an improved sense of inclusivity. The implications of this for the global mental health debate will be briefly considered as will health pluralism and the importance of language and using a mother tongue.