INSIGHT
Delivering culturally safe support to South Asian clients After marking South Asian Heritage Month, Shabnam Berry-Khan, director and clinical psychologist at Psychworks Associates, shares why the traumatic experiences of people coming to the UK in previous generations continue to impact today - and why, for that reason, a wholly bespoke approach to trauma within this community is needed from medico-legal professionals
Recently, we have marked South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM), from July 18 to August 17. It is significant as an opportunity to celebrate the South Asian contributions to the UK - currently there are around two million South Asian
18
people living here - and to recognise stories from these times, both positive and difficult. This year, additionally, SAHM commemorates two key milestones - the 75th anniversary of the partition of India into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the 50th anniversary of the Ugandan expulsion of South Asians by Idi Amin. SAHM has been marked by us at Psychworks Associates and is a topic that is dear to my heart - not just because I’m a brown person whose parents were both refugees in the respective India and East Africa crises. But also because, as a psychologist, these experiences will be alive and active in brown clients that we all see. Regardless of whether it is their direct experience, and regardless of their awareness of it. South Asian people make up the biggest minority group in the UK - but what is commonly known about their experience? And how does and should that experience impact the work we do with them?
For many of our South Asian population in coming to the UK, there is often trauma associated with that - this can stem from within their family and heritage and can impact for generations to come. You can learn more about the reasons for this in our Q&A below. An interesting paper that came out this year by Prajapati and Leibling (https://link. springer.com/article/10.1007/s40615-02100993-x) highlighted how South Asians feel about engaging with professional mental health services. Notably, these stood out for me: > How seeking help triggers powerlessness and threat, and how behaviour changes when anxieties are heightened. > The importance of collaborative care: Service users described experiences of feeling disempowered and dehumanised when accessing services. > The importance of the input including family and friends: service users often valued the presence of family members for reassurance and support and felt services did not always value family input, seeing it as a hinderance. > Language is important to feeling like a service hears them in a way they want to be heard, because sentiments can be lost in translation. > The importance of trust in the professional relationship which can be enhanced when professionals look like them or can demonstrate at all times a sensitivity to the impact of cultural experiences on daily living. If you look beyond the mental health context, many of the themes will apply to our work as personal injury professionals. As a traumainformed psychological service, trauma and its impact is central to how we at Psychworks Associates approach our cases.