Co-Stars Feasibility Evaluation
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Psychology
Abstract
Severe mental illnesses like psychosis, a mental health problem that can change how people see the world, can cause a lot of distress for a person, and have a big impact on their lives. Psychosis impacts vulnerable groups unfairly, including people form minority ethnic backgrounds, and those from social and financial hardship. In the UK, people from Black ethnic backgrounds are more likely than White British people to experience psychosis for the first time and have negative experiences accessing mental health support. The reasons for this are complex but include racism, discrimination, mental health stigma, lack of awareness of what the symptoms and outcomes of mental illness are (mental health literacy).
Mental health literacy (MHL) more broadly refers to having the right knowledge about mental illness, how to look after your mental health, and knowing where to get the right support, can help people access the right treatments at an earlier stage to help them stay well and have a good recovery. However, interventions designed to improve MHL do not take into consideration the needs and experiences of different cultural groups. As noted in the Black community, these needs and experiences may be responsible for some of the disparities seen, and then as such is quite a critical missing component in our public health approach to improving mental health.
Hence, we can do several things to promote fairer access to mental health care: 1) improve understanding within Black communities about symptoms of mental illness and where to access timely support; 2) improve education for mental health professionals around the challenges that Black people face; 3) ensure everyone is treated fairly, offered choice that respects cultural needs, and given timely access to treatments.
We have developed a mental health literacy training package called Co-Stars, that has been co-designed with young people from Black African and Black Caribbean backgrounds with experience of mental ill health. The training is delivered by these young people to our local underserved communities in places of worship and community centres. We want to see if this can encourage people from these communities to access support for their mental health (Work package 1). We have also co-designed online training for mental health professionals on how they can better support Black communities (Work package 2). We will gather views from people within Black communities, as well as mental health staff, on whether they think the training is helpful, appropriate, and can make a difference to improve mental health outcomes for Black people. We will test this carefully through a research trial where some community settings will receive the training, while other settings will not. This will be the same for staff training, where some mental health services will receive the training, and others will not. This is a robust way for us to see if what we are doing might work in a larger study. We also want to see how these two types of interventions can influence wider system changes that are needed to improve outcomes (Work package 3), and assess potential cost savings through reducing mental health detentions, keeping people well for longer, and wider societal benefits (Work package 4). Ultimately, through our work, we want to lessen mental health inequalities for Black ethnic groups.
Mental health literacy (MHL) more broadly refers to having the right knowledge about mental illness, how to look after your mental health, and knowing where to get the right support, can help people access the right treatments at an earlier stage to help them stay well and have a good recovery. However, interventions designed to improve MHL do not take into consideration the needs and experiences of different cultural groups. As noted in the Black community, these needs and experiences may be responsible for some of the disparities seen, and then as such is quite a critical missing component in our public health approach to improving mental health.
Hence, we can do several things to promote fairer access to mental health care: 1) improve understanding within Black communities about symptoms of mental illness and where to access timely support; 2) improve education for mental health professionals around the challenges that Black people face; 3) ensure everyone is treated fairly, offered choice that respects cultural needs, and given timely access to treatments.
We have developed a mental health literacy training package called Co-Stars, that has been co-designed with young people from Black African and Black Caribbean backgrounds with experience of mental ill health. The training is delivered by these young people to our local underserved communities in places of worship and community centres. We want to see if this can encourage people from these communities to access support for their mental health (Work package 1). We have also co-designed online training for mental health professionals on how they can better support Black communities (Work package 2). We will gather views from people within Black communities, as well as mental health staff, on whether they think the training is helpful, appropriate, and can make a difference to improve mental health outcomes for Black people. We will test this carefully through a research trial where some community settings will receive the training, while other settings will not. This will be the same for staff training, where some mental health services will receive the training, and others will not. This is a robust way for us to see if what we are doing might work in a larger study. We also want to see how these two types of interventions can influence wider system changes that are needed to improve outcomes (Work package 3), and assess potential cost savings through reducing mental health detentions, keeping people well for longer, and wider societal benefits (Work package 4). Ultimately, through our work, we want to lessen mental health inequalities for Black ethnic groups.
