Re-igniting Windrush Folk stories and songs to improve African-Caribbean mental health disparities in the London Boroughs of Lewisham & Greenwich

This cross-disciplinary intergenerational project created a network of experts from multiple fields, aiming to achieve several key objectives. Using A-C Folk Songs and Art methods, it provided support to hub spaces, including training, remuneration for services and connecting them to therapists. The project also embeded culturally relevant narrative therapy techniques in community settings to support proactive positive mental health, whilst ensuring community organisations had access to affordable meeting spaces. Finally, it created opportunities for intergenerational connection, fostering a more cohesive and supportive community environment.

A-C communities are 40% more likely than white-British people to come into contact with mental health services and be detained under the Mental Health Act, reflecting a stark historical pattern of structural racism and its ensuing health inequalities within the mental health system (Vige, 2019). Access to mental healthcare services are limited as a result of institutional, cultural and socio- economic exclusion factors related to BME groups (Memon, et al., 2016).  The field of clinical psychology often 'assumes a deficit-based-approach' to the mental health of those minoritised by society (Renkly & Bertolini, 2018). This model is problematic with those from A-C groups because it places emphasis on the individual rather than systems of oppression and ignores the ways cultural traditions and communities create supporting mechanisms for mental health.  Our approach offers an alternative model.

This project uses an augmented generative co-design framework base on Bird et al (2021) where a narrative enquiry (Pinnegar, & Daynes, 2007) is used to engage participants in conversations on folk songs and how these can be utilised to support mental health of the local A-C community.  Through a series of workshops we brought together storytellers, A-C elders and young adults 18-85 to gather traditional stories as well as to create new ones. This supported our understanding of both folk stories and song routes and the lessons learnt within them. We used these stories as analogies to map out the socio-cultural ways in which mental health is discussed in African-Caribbean communities, capturing these conversations via film which, after each session, is edited and re-shared in the next session to create a focus for future conversations. 

During the project we have co-produced a toolkit including: film, workshop plans and thematic analysis of findings.  Our work will feed into at least 2 publications which connect the 10 NHS 75 projects (article and policy document) and we plan on publishing at least 2 further works; 1 on methodological insight and the other on research findings.

Our work has been shared at the International symposium (1st July 2024 University of Greenwich) linked to mental Health and the Climate crisis, opening possible future avenues of work with international organisations as well as with the Caribbean Association.