New project capturing how BME people with mental illness are coping with coronavirus pandemic

A researcher from The University of Manchester is part of a new project documenting how ethnic minority people with lived experience of severe mental illness—and their carers—are coping during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The pandemic is generating great uncertainty, as well as creating social and economic conditions that are adversely impacting people's mental and physical health, access to equitable treatment and access to relevant information.

Professor James Nazroo and his colleagues at the Synergi Collaborative Centre are concerned that existing standards in mental health services, which are already demonstrably insufficient, will be reduced.

They are also concerned that essential knowledge is not reaching ethnic minority people with experience of severe mental illness and their carers, including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, along with insufficient opportunities for their stories to be visible, heard and shared as part of a supportive community for change.

For this reason, they have launched a new platform that will capture people's experiences, in order to build a community of knowledge and support, to allow people to build connections with others facing similar challenges at a difficult time of self-isolation, and to collaborate with stakeholders to consider how they can improve their services during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Respondents are being asked to share their stories in a variety of ways, from inspiring quotes to poetry to short stories to images, and to give recommendations of what materials or activities are helping them to cope at this challenging time.