Why it's important to ensure Black young people recognise themselves in services they use

by Reverend Cassius Francis, minister with the Wesleyan Holiness Church and Chaplain, Birmingham Women and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

I believe that getting this right for Black young people can have a big impact not just on the Black community but for wider society, enabling more young people from all communities to access the support they need.

The more that I've learned about grief and bereavement, the more I recognise that everybody has to grieve in their own way and in their own time. For some people in the Black community, this could be something traditional like Nine Nights and other ways of gathering as a community, but others will struggle with this and want their own space and time.

Being able to maintain something that links back to your heritage can be helpful but within that it’s important to recognise the need to be gentle with people, to hold them carefully as they grieve as everybody's grief story is individual and unique to them.

Young people of African and African Caribbean heritage are more likely to experience multiple bereavements which adds to complexities around how they process and come to terms with grief. Black young people have often been described as ‘hard to reach’ or ‘hard to engage’ yet more often these young people are born here - they’re not new to the country, facing a language barrier, or struggling to understand how systems work. Younger generations are also more used to discussing issues around their mental and emotional health, particularly in the classroom.

Despite this, reluctance to seek support still exists and sometimes for good reason; we know that Black men are disproportionately represented in mental health statistics and institutions and Black women experience worse outcomes in maternity services. We cannot discount the systemic racism that is still a reality in a number of our services and institutions. 

It really provides some useful dynamics for us to think about: if we are able to get it right for this group of young people, there are lessons that we can learn for wider communities that really need to access bereavement support.

I believe the impetus is in meeting Black young people where they are and ensuring they recognise themselves in services they use. A big one is images that are used and how reflective they are of the young people themselves in bereavement support resources. I really think that's critical. Sometimes I will discover really helpful resources around bereavement, but the images of white young people will immediately be a barrier to me being able to present this to a young person to be able to access and own as their own story. If a young Black person doesn’t feel represented - whether that’s via imagery or the people delivering the service - it’s immediately a barrier to being able to access what might otherwise be good quality information and support.

This poses a challenge for organisations around cultural sensitivity and how young people can access bereavement support services that reflect them and their lived experience. The key is for organisations that want to support young Black people to connect with those community-led organisations that they are already accessing and which they trust.

In the book ‘Black Grief and Healing - Why We Need To Talk About Health Inequality, Health and Trauma’, I write ‘Black communities are not hard to reach! However, engagement needs to be authentic and transparent if injustices and equalities are going to be addressed.’

I believe that getting this right for Black young people can have a big impact not just on the Black community but for wider society, enabling more young people from all communities to access the support they need.

---

Visit our page: How we can support you for more on our services.

You can also call our Helpline 0800 02 888 40, email [email protected], or use Live Chat on our website.