Tackling the Black Mental Health “Crisis” from Within Black Britons are disprivileged in mental health care in the 70th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service. The author asks why and points out how to resolve the crisis. By Thomas L Blair The author and what the book is about Prof Thomas L Blair BA, MA PhD publishes the Editions Blair series and edits his pioneering Black Experience web sites archived in the Social Welfare Portal of the British Library https://www.bl.uk/social- welfare/search?q=editions+blair&catalogue=sitecore His eBook argues for a culture and community-centred approach to the Black Mental Health Care “Crisis”. He details the positive influences of historical Black psychiatrists: Lambo and Fanon, contemporary clinicians, psychologists and mental care workers Aggrey Burke, Bushell and Blackman. Nine principles and crisis-changing strategies are identified. These include: 1. Recognise that the Black Mental Health Care “crisis” is more than just a funding problem. Its roots are in the biased distribution of mental health services. Made worse by people-destructive priorities in the economy and society. The solution must include community-led self-study and mutual aid. 2. Learn from communities building productive cultures of health and well-being, especially in the Black diaspora homelands, in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. 3. Create your Knowledge Base with culture-appropriate local surveys, observations and experiences. 4. Lead in training local mental health clinicians to deliver the evidence for prevention, treatment, and health promotion. 5. Launch Fair Media guides for journalists to encourage balanced reporting. 6. Ensure that mental illness, in individuals and groups, is covered by insurance at parity with other illnesses. 7. Support a community-led agenda with the assistance of key agencies, administrations and organisations, and scientists, clinicians, psychiatrists and anti-stigma campaigns. 8. Promote voluntary philanthropy for Black Mental Health Care among wealthy Black celebrities and the better-off classes. 9. Organise legal and medical defence groups to champion the rights of Black people with and prone to mental illnesses. Publication details Tackling the Black Mental Health “Crisis” from Within Thomas L Blair 978-1-908480-64-4 Published by Editions Blair e-Books 2017© No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and the publisher of this book. The greatest care has been taken in compiling this book. However, no responsibility can be accepted by the author and publishers or compilers for the accuracy of the information presented. Opinions expressed do not necessarily coincide with the editorial views of author or copyright holder Edition Blair. Editions Blair has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Every effort has been made to reach copyright holders. The publishers would be pleased to hear from anyone whose rights have been unwittingly infringed. Black Mental Health Care In Crisis, Activists Warn Nine “Why-to” and “How-to” Ways to Build Cultures of Health and Well-being By Thomas L Blair, 11 November 2017© rev 13 Nov The 70th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service is poised to be the toughest financial year for Black mental health services. In response, local councillor Jacqui Dyer MBE shown here and political activist Patrick Vernon. They are campaigning for Black Thrive, a partnership for Black Well-being in Lambeth, the London borough with a Black mayor, Cllr Marcia Cameron. Dyer warns this is “precisely the time to dig seriously deep for money, because the impact of austerity is creating even more mental illness as people struggle to survive”. African and Caribbean residents are over-represented and least served in the mental health services. A fact “ignored for far too long”, in Lambeth still reeling from the death in police custody of Black psychiatric patient Sean Riggs. The horrific statistics spurred Dyer’s good intentions. For example: “Lambeth has the highest rate of psychiatric detention under the Mental Health Act in England”, according to the Black Mental Health Commission, and two-thirds are of Black African and Caribbean background. Given the scale and depth of the crisis, the plain truth is that mentally ill Black people are short-changed by the system. They are more likely to be subject to sectioning and medication. They often suffer lethal physical restraint, agonising death or incarceration. And, campaigners say there is little support after they are released. No wonder communities and stricken individuals are reluctant to engage with services, and are so much more ill when they do. Hence, the rise in human wreckage will reach disastrous levels every year that help and hope are denied. Nine principles and strategies for change Humbling pleas of inequality and under–funding of Black Mental Health Care (BMHC) will not work in these tight budget years. Therefore, activists must pledge to create their own development plan and raise the social capital to fund it. Here are nine principles and strategies to achieve this. 1. Recognise that the Black Mental Health Care “crisis” is more than just a funding problem. Its roots are in the biased distribution of mental health services. Made worse by people-destructive priorities in the economy and society. The solution must include community-led self-study and mutual aid with the support of Lambeth’s mayor Cllr Marcia Cameron. 2. Learn from communities building productive cultures of health and well- being, especially in the Black diaspora homelands, in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. 3. Create your Knowledge Base with culture-appropriate local surveys, observations and experiences. 4. Lead in training local mental health clinicians to deliver the evidence for prevention, treatment, and health promotion. 5. Launch Fair Media guides for journalists to encourage balanced reporting. 6. Ensure that mental illness, in individuals and groups, is covered by insurance at parity with other illnesses. 7. Support a community-led agenda with the assistance of key agencies, administrations and organisations, and scientists, clinicians, psychiatrists and anti-stigma campaigns. 8. Promote voluntary philanthropy for Black Mental Health Care among wealthy Black celebrities and the better-off classes. 9. Organise legal and medical defence groups to champion the rights of Black people with and prone to mental illnesses. As you can see, this Chrononicleworld approach encourages self-reliance, not moralisms, hollow rhetoric and pleading. Rather, it complements righteous anger with positive programs worked out in their minute particulars. This is precisely the forward thinking that is required. NOTE: For further information: Get Connected , browse the web read the Chronicleworld article on the problems and solutions to deaths in custody. Serious comments and debate are welcome.- For your information: The Mayor of Lambeth Councillor Marcia Cameron (2017/2018) Councillor Cameron was inaugurated as the Mayor of Lambeth on Wednesday 19 April 2017 at the Annual Meeting of the Council. Cameron said ‘I am extremely proud to have been given this opportunity, to represent the people of Lambeth in the borough that I was born in and grew up in and I am looking forward to meeting residents, local groups, organisations and businesses during my term of office’. Councillor Cameron has been a councillor for Tulse Hill Ward since 2006. Keywords and topics: Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Europe, Afro-Latin Americans, Crisis of Black urbanism, Homelands, Media and online journalism, Networking Homelands of Black Britons, African Diaspora, Black advancement, Black Reconstruction, Introduction .'Black British culture is in crisis' says leading scholar, State of Black Britain, Why aren't Black deaths in custody an election issue?” AFIYA — Nothing Black is Alien to Us A 5-step Crisis-busting Program for Black psychiatrists By Thomas L Blair 25 November 2017 © As the degradation of the Black mentally ill and the collapse of community solidarity unfold, Dr Aggrey W Burke, shown here, and many other Black psychiatrists make a clear and valid point. Black psychiatrists and health workers are better equipped to address the Black mental health and care crisis than the followers of the Viennese polymath, Sigmund Freud. Increasingly and convincingly, more than a half century of evidence supports this view. African and Afro-Caribbean psychiatrists and medical scientists have contributed to mental health knowledge and practice. Collectively, they reject the false equation that Eurocentric “normal” is good for everyone. Each sought to apply the healing qualities of the Black experiences. “It takes a village” – Communal effort has a role in treating mental illness It is a little known fact that Thomas Adeoye Lambo was the first Black trained psychiatrist in the UK. As a hospital administrator in colonial Nigeria, he created the Aro Village system of community psychiatry in 1954. Radically, he rejected the cast-off shackles of Bedlam Britain. Instead, he treated patients with a combination of modern curative techniques and traditional resources.