West of Scotland Regional Equality Council
Our work with WSREC helped us to build a better understanding of the intersectional nature of adversely racialised communities’ experiences of mental health stigma and discrimination and are better able to include community concerns.
Since 2022, we’ve been working with the West of Scotland Regional Equality Council (WSREC) to expand our knowledge and understanding of mental health stigma for certain minority ethnic communities.
WSREC was set up as the Glasgow Community Relations Council in 1971 to represent the many needs of diverse minority ethnic communities. In the beginning, their services focused on casework, advocacy, and advice related to racial discrimination across all sectors.
Over the years they have evolved their services to increase equal opportunities, expanding to other areas of work. Their current work champions equalities for all those who fall under the nine protected characteristics (as outlined in the Equality Act 2010) taking an intersectional approach.
The characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
We have built a strong relationship with WSREC over the last two years and have supported each other’s work through events, sharing our learning materials and through critical reflection workshops.
Developing resources on intersectional stigma
WSREC helped us to develop our intersectional stigma workshop, which we’ve gone on to deliver with a range of organisations. It was crucial to get their perspective as an expert equalities organisation on this piece of work.
In discussions, similar themes such as patriarchy, racism and their impact on mental health came up for staff members who support various community members.
We also held the It’s Okay to Talk workshop in May 2023 with nine staff members representing six nationalities, working with communities from different minority ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. They said there was low confidence in the groups they work with to talk about their mental health.
The staff team identified the group See Me would work with to further develop the resource, which included 15 older Arabic-speaking women from a range of backgrounds who had been working together on a mental health and wellbeing project. Staff highlighted the need for any session to prioritise the comfort of participants and to use appropriate terms that would resonate, such as wellbeing rather than mental health.
*See Me recognises that terminology and labels used to refer to social groups is ethically and politically complex, can be harmful and is subject to debate and update.
On our website we have used the terminology partners themselves or cited publications have used to refer to the communities they are led by or referring to. We are committed to continually engaging with this critical debate to understand and limit harm.