‘Having Two Heads’: An Exploration of Experiences Relating to the Mental Health of Children of Black Africans

Background: Within the increasingly prominent field of migrant mental health, research on children of migrants (COM) indicates sociocultural factors play an important role in mental health outcomes observed in migrant communities. While several potential factors have been implicated, research is at an impasse in understanding underlying mechanisms. Within COM literature, failures to appropriately appreciate variations between different COM populations, or to include COM perspectives is suggested to contribute to difficulties advancing the research. This research therefore specifically focused on the perspective of children of Black Africans (COBA) in the UK, a quickly growing population at the centre of many of the intersecting inequalities likely to affect COM mental health.

Methodology: Research was conducted from a critical realist epistemological standpoint and informed by pre-research participatory focus groups. A qualitative methodology was used to explore COBA’s views about factors that are currently reported in psychological literature to affect their mental health. Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Analysis: Following the reflexive thematic analysis of the qualitative data, three themes were developed. ‘Connection and Disconnection’ explored the complex patterns of interactions participants described within relationships with their numerous communities, and relationships with their own identities. ‘Loss and Shame’ discussed how disconnections and comparisons could result in feelings of loss and shame. ‘Control’ considered how COBA’s contexts could contribute to feelings of disempowerment, and the steps they took to reclaim control.

Conclusion: Findings were discussed in relation to the existing literature. COBA’s perspectives highlighted important nuances in factors hypothesised to be important to COM mental health, such as discrimination and ethnic density. Additional factors were also explored, including the role of shame and ‘micro-losses’. Recommendations of therapeutics approaches with COM and their parents and wider policy interventions are made, alongside research suggestions to help clarify current inconsistencies in migrant mental health research.