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The MHPF pilot project looking at the effectiveness of the Recovery Star for clients from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds came to an end earlier on in the year and the report is now available for download.
The project, which was funded by the Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health (DRE) programme worked with six voluntary and community organisations across three regions nationally: Amaani Tallawah, AWAAZ, Young Diverse Minds in Nottingham; Dosti Asian Women’s Support Service, Touchstone in Leeds; and Southside Partnership in London.
We were keen to work with organisations that already had a track record of providing culturally sensitive services, in order to get a critical appraisal of whether the Recovery Star model was culturally relevant, and to generate recommendations for modifications to improve cross-cultural applicability.
The pilot considered the following themes in exploring potential barriers to the Recovery Star’s effectiveness as a key-working and outcomes measurement tool for use by minority ethnic clients:
- Whether broad cultural practices that impact on the lived experiences of mental ill-health and recovery are/can be adequately addressed within the model
- Language use
It also looked at how service users felt about using the Recovery Star in key-working sessions, looking at the following themes:
- Is the Recovery Star a useful and rewarding tool for BAME service users?
- Is the Recovery Star model accessible for BAME service users?
- Is the content of the Recovery Star sufficient and relevant for BAME service users?
Our findings show that; Use of the Recovery Star as part of the key-working session was considered to be a valuable experience by the majority of service users who took part in the pilot. The majority of the areas on the Star were seen to represent sufficient universal themes, giving it cross-cultural relevance.
Our research also showed that improvements could be made by providing further acknowledgement of cultural practices that shape and impact on the lived experience of mental ill-health and wellbeing within information in the detailed Ladder of Change. These changes were carried out during the course of the pilot along with the production of visual resources in order to address language barriers.
The need for staff training in cultural competency, working with service users’ sense of shame, denial and in creating a space in which service users feel safe to share feelings and/or disclose personal experiences was also highlighted, to help staff explore culturally specific content with appropriate sensitivity.
Read the full report: "The Recovery Star model and cultural competency".
You can also view and access the visual resources via our website where they are available for purchase.
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