Pakistani and Bangladeshi Women in Oldham project

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust & CHAI Project

Starting point

The Pakistani and Bangladeshi Women in Oldham project is a collaboration between the Women's CHAI (Care, Help and Inspire) Projectand Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. Pennine Care took part in the Advancing Mental Health Equity (AMHE) Collaborative launched in July 2021.

Pennine Care recognised that in Oldham, Greater Manchester, the South Asian community faced barriers in accessing mental health support. Reasons for this include cultural beliefs, and societal norms that discourage open discussions about mental health and wellbeing.

A non-executive director at Pennine Care introduced the project team to the challenges faced by the community during focus group, held to identify their populations for the AMHE work.

The population/group

Women of South Asian heritage (mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi) engaging with mental health services in Oldham.

The project team

The team comprised people from:

Women’s CHAI Project
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.

This partnership was formed between the CHAI Project and Pennine Care, to focus on how to improve access to mental health services from an organisational and stakeholder perspective. The Women’s CHAI (Care, Help and Inspire CIC) Project had been set up over a cup of chai in 2011. It’s a place where women can seek help, feel cared for and get inspired.

How they worked with the community and other stakeholders

The CHAI Project run weekly groups across Greater Manchester, with ‘Bollycise’ and ‘Bhangracise’ classes, self-defence classes and a walking group.

Informed by the information gathered in early focus groups with South Asian women, the project team agreed their aim would be to:

‘Increase the number of women of South Asian heritage (mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi) engaging with mental health services, in the borough of Oldham (Greater Manchester).’

What they found out from the community and other stakeholders

The project team outcomes:

Recruit 25 Oldham community-based female mental health champions.
Deliver training to 25 female mental health champions.
Develop confidence of 25 champions in identifying key mental health issues, symptoms, or risk factors.

Ideas they tested

The project team collaborated with women accessing the CHAI Project to think about ways to achieve the goals set out above (the project team outcomes). They worked creatively to come up with change ideas, by holding three seminars to bring together women and the Trust and identify ideas for improvement.

The team held focus groups to further develop ideas and finalise the initiatives, which included:

Identify and train community-based mental health champions using a co-produced training package.
Build community relationships through women’s self-defence classes.

Successes and achievements

Identifying and recruiting mental health champions

They recruited 25 community-based mental health champions, which exceeded their own expectations. They were delivering mental health champions training to 60 women of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somalian and Arab heritage.
They provided additional resources to enhance the women’s knowledge of CAMHS, following specific requests from them.

Co-produced training package

They co-produced a training package for the community-based mental health champions, including the following topics:

What is mental health and mental illness?
Mental health and causes of mental illness.
The impact of stigma, discrimination and stress.
Islam, health and wellbeing.
How we can improve our mental health and support others.

Womens self-defence classes

This was an unusual but effective way to build relationships and trust. Feedback from attendees included reports of:

improved mental health
increased physical activity
feeling safe
reduced isolation
improved confidence
developing new skills

What next?

The team will:

Run more self-defence classes:
- After the success of the initial classes, the Women’s CHAI project applied for and obtained funding for 20 further classes.
Continue to monitor data:
- To look for impact of the new mental health champions on people accessing mental health services.
Tentative discussions are taking place about delivering this work in Bury, Stockport, Tameside, Rochdale (the other four boroughs of Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust).