By Vic Motune From The Voice

‘Acting like a man’ in troubled times is causing major health problems for African Caribbean men. However one London based project is trying to change that

It’s been 10 years since 41 year old Garfield (not his real name), a barrister from northwest London and his wife divorced.

But he can still remember exactly what it felt like.

“Emotionally, I was devastated” the father of two recalls “When it happened I felt a sense of failure. The whole situation just turned me upside down and I couldn’t stop crying.”

The rawness of his feelings spilt over into his professional life.

“There were times when I was in court and in the middle of speaking and found myself struggling to hold back the tears. For years afterwards, I struggled with depression and I didn’t really know who to turn to.”

For Garfield, who came to the UK from the Caribbean island of St Kitts in his early teens, there were also cultural reasons behind his sense of failure.

“A stable marriage is a plus for a black man in my area of work because few people expect a black man to be a family man. Society often portrays black men as womanisers or as being unwilling to stay in long term relationships. I wanted to prove to society that I was different. I wanted to have a successful career and a good marriage.”

It was experiences like Garfield’s that inspired Neil Solo, head of the Babyfather Initiative, a project set up by the charity Barnardos to create a support group for men like Garfield.

Each week, ten to fifteen group members, predominantly single fathers, get together, and discuss their own specific problems and issues.

Discussions may range from where relationships went wrong, forming new relationships, custody of children and the process of getting past a deep sense of pain and starting afresh. And often, members meet outside group sessions to encourage and help each other to deal with their emotional problems.

This approach says Solo, stops men from falling into destructive patterns in difficult times.

“When things are tough men might say ‘let me just smoke something, or drink something and get high.’ And it’s easy for them to fall into a trap where they think that’s the way out. Me personally, I only have about three black male friends that I could break down and cry in front of. The rest of them would run a mile. And unfortunately, that’s the way that a lot of black men have been conditioned.

The group is not pitched as a counselling or therapy session although after regularly attending, group members get a better understanding of what these methods involve.”

And this approach says Solo has made it accessible to those who otherwise would have shied away.

“There’s not a model of counselling out there that sits comfortably with where men are generally or a culturally specific model that can deal with some of the machismo attitudes that would make black men in particular be resistant to counselling and help.”

RESPONSE: Counselling services need to develop culturally specific approaches to helping men from minority communities

As the Mental Health Foundation recently highlighted, men in general are often unable to identify themselves as having a mental health problem, have a low level of awareness of available services, and are reluctant to seek help for the emotional problems that can arise from a relationship break up.

This range of problems is even greater amongst many black or minority ethnic (BME) men who may also feel suspicious of mental health services and the ability of mental health professionals to meet their needs.

Statistics would seem to support this suspicion. The Mental Health Act Commission’s Count Me In Census (2005) of mental health inpatient services showed that BME men are significantly overrepresented (in comparison to both White men and Irish men) in the mental health system, and have very different pathways to care. The research showed that there were 33 to 44 per cent higher than average rates of detention, 50 per cent higher rates of seclusion and 30 per cent higher control and restraint rates for African Caribbean men.

However London based counsellor and life coach Rasheed Ogunlaru who has worked with many men from BME communities believes there is a danger that recognising this gap in service provision could lead to a one size fits all approach which also has its problems.

“It’s true that men from this particular cultural group often have very strong ideas about how they should be as men and use those ideas to cope with emotional problems” he says. “But it’s also complex because often we’re dealing with cross cultural issues. So for example, somebody may be of Jamaican origin but also a cockney and both can inform their sense of self.”

He added: “You’ve also got generational differences where younger black and minority ethnic men are much happier talking about their emotional challenges than an older generation who were raised to be strong and keep problems in the family. We need to be mindful that although there are these challenges for black and minority ethnic men, they are not universal. However, I think it would be useful for us to begin to paint a broader picture of the type of support available. The default idea that many men have about counselling or psychotherapy is that somebody goes and sits on somebody’s couch, saying nearly nothing and that creates an image of being overly scrutinised, or worse hypnotised. So there’s a job for service providers to do in allowing men from communities who traditionally don’t go to counselling to see what actually goes on.”

For more on this story go to:

http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/beyond-black-and-macho