PRiSM lead (PhD project): Dr Sanchika Campbell

PhD supervisors: Professor Stephani Hatch and Dr Charlotte Woodhead

Co-researchers (community-based): Denise Richards, Rev. Gail Thompson, and Winston Webber

Colleagues (university-based) who have contributed: Nathan Stanley, Dr Chanelle Myrie, Anna-Theresa Jieman, Dr Juliana Onwumere, Verity Buckley

PRiSM is nested within the ‘Marginalised Communities’ research programme within the ESRC Centre for Society & Mental Health (CSMH) at King’s College London.

Background

Religion and spirituality play a major role in many people’s lives. Around 90% of the global population engage in some form of religious or spiritual practice. However, mainstream Western psychology and psychiatry often overlooks this area.

In South-East London, a diverse and multicultural area, many individuals and communities face ongoing health and social inequalities. For many people from racialised minority groups, faith is a central part of life. Faith communities, including Black Majority Churches (BMCs) have increasingly become recognised as important spaces in supporting mental health and wellbeing. Religious coping and guidance from faith leaders are especially valuable in these communities. In recent decades, the number of BMCs in London has grown significantly. Projects like ON TRAC, led by Dr Louisa Codjoe, have helped build stronger connections between Black faith communities and mental health services, promoting more holistic and culturally sensitive care (Codjoe et al., 2019). At present we still have limited understanding of why faith and involvement in Black Majority Church activity in the UK is such an important part of life, coping, and help-seeking, among heterogenous Black ethnic groups, who face systemic barriers to accessing meaningful healthcare. Addressing an area where our understanding has been limited, PRiSM has helped to explore how religion and spirituality can both support and hinder mental health and help-seeking among members from Black Majority Churches in the UK.

Codjoe, L., Barber, S., & Thornicroft, G. (2019). Tackling Inequalities: A partnership between mental health services and black faith communities.  Journal of Mental Health, 28 (3), 225 228. doi: 10.1080/09638237.2019.1608933

Purpose of the PRiSM project

PRiSM aimed to understand the ways in which religion and spirituality affect mental health, coping strategies, and help-seeking behaviours among members from Black Majority Churches (BMCs) in South-East London.

This was a participatory research project, meaning that community members were actively involved in phases of the project as co-researchers. Community co-researchers are people who steer and conduct research through their lived experience of the issue/topic being studied. This approach helps to build knowledge with, and shift power to, communities whose voices are often underrepresented. Community co-researchers were Christians from Black racially minoritised groups, brought their wisdom, lived experience and insights to the project. They helped shape interview questions and guided the research process. Later, two university-based researchers joined to add intergenerational perspectives. Together, the PRiSM team deepened understanding of interview findings and co-facilitated an engagement event. Within PRiSM, we have coproduced actionable insights for healthcare providers in how they should consider and respect religious beliefs in healthcare services, and for Black Majority Churches and faith communities to better support members’ mental health and increase help-seeking.

The PRiSM’s project’s main research question is:

In what ways do religion and spirituality affect mental health, coping with adversity and mental health difficulties, and help-seeking behaviours among members from Black Majority Churches (BMCs) in South-East London?

PRiSM's three main aims were:

1. To examine the association between religious attendance and spiritual coping with mental health and help-seeking, using data from the South-East London Community Health study.
   
   
2. To explore Black Majority Church membership, coping through religion and spirituality, cultural concepts of mental health, and help-seeking among members from two Black Majority Churches in South-East London, through in-depth interviews.
   
   
3. To co-produce knowledge with community co-researchers as part of a participatory research approach, including guiding key project questions, deepening understanding around emerging findings, and co-producing actionable insights for faith communities and healthcare providers, including findings from aims 1 and 2.

Research methods used in the PRiSM project

 Full ethical approval for the project was received from the KCL, Psychiatry, Nursing and Midwifery Research Ethics Subcommittee, Reference Number: HR-19/20-17473.

To address the research aims, PRiSM used mixed methods which involved qualitative and quantitative data to answer different questions but which can be combined to give more in-depth findings. A participatory research approach was used throughout. As part of the quantitative study, Sanchika analysed local community survey data from the South-East London Community Health study (SELCoH). Sanchika held interviews with 18 people from two local BMCs as part of qualitative data collection, which also included learning from PRiSM discussions through the participatory research process.

Key findings

PRiSM’s key findings involved combining results from both the quantitative and qualitative analysis, in addition to learning from PRiSM discussions in the participatory research process.

The SELCoh study found that Black African and Caribbean participants were most likely to attend religious services and use prayer to cope. Interviews and the co-production process suggested faith was deeply tied to people’s identity and helped people manage experiences of hardships, racism, migration, and mental ill health.

Being part of a faith community supported better mental health, and regular attendance was linked to fewer common mental health issues. However, mental health stigma within churches and racism in healthcare often discouraged people from seeking formal support. Many turned to faith networks instead, though stigma could also be a barrier there.

Spirituality played a central role in mental wellbeing, showing the need for support that is safe, culturally relevant, and spiritually sensitive. The findings call on faith communities to encourage open conversations about mental health and to work with other faith communities and mental health services, while healthcare providers should deliver care that is compassionate, culturally aware, anti-racist, and respectful of people’s spiritual needs.​‌

PRiSM PhD

PRiSM newstory: PRiSM project explores religion, spirituality and mental health in Southeast London faith communities | King's College London

PRiSM Events

ESRC Festival of Social Sciences (4^th November 2022)

The PRiSM dissemination event “Faith and mental health: why one size does not fit all”, was an in-person interactive event, themed around ‘my local area’, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences 2022: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/faith-mental-health-in-south-east-london.

We held this event to provide an opportunity for mental health professionals and members of faith communities, particularly those from Black Majority Churches (BMCs), to come together to talk to each other so we can together, better support local mental health. Our hope was for the event to spark necessary conversations to bridge the long-standing divide between medicine and faith/spirituality in the UK. Through the event, attendees had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of community researchers in PRiSM, to share their own experiences around faith and mental health, and to engage in small group discussions around which PRiSM actionable insights to prioritise, and how we can respect faith and cultural beliefs to improve the experiences of those seeking mental health support in South-East London.

CSMH: Partnering for Change Festival (June 2022)

As part of the CSMH’s 2022 Festival ‘Partnering for Change’, we celebrated an active research partnership, co-learning from an intersectional and intergenerational understanding of knowledge, and across intersections of religious and cultural identities, age, gender, migration experiences, and lived experiences of mental health.

Through a project engagement event within the ‘Partnering for Change’ festival, our PRiSM research team raised awareness on issues that matter to them around faith and mental health as part of a panel discussion. Through an interactive workshop, we then sought to apply knowledge in partnership with session participants, to inspire our final co-produced messages within the project, and help to direct future research to improve support for Black mental health. We engaged with a diverse group of people, including those who may have power to lead discussions in their own communities/organisations. Learning from workshop discussions and participant feedback were integrated within the co-production process, to inform the finalised actionable insights and PhD process.

Visual minutes of our engagement event (image above) were illustrated by Federica Ciotti.

Support services

A list of support services have been complied as part of the project and is free to access: support services.

For further information, please contact Sanchika Campbell (PhD student): Sanchika.Campbell@kcl.ac.uk.

Team Bios

Sanchika Campbell

Sanchika Campbell is a Research Associate with the Population Mental Health Consortium, KCL. She completed her PhD at the CSMH and has been a member of HERON and the HIRG since 2013. She was supervised by Professor Stephani Hatch and Dr Charlotte Woodhead. Sanchika is the PRiSM project lead. Her faith has been an integral part of her life and identity. She recognises the importance of faith as an essential part of coping with everyday life amongst family and friends who attend Black Majority Churches. Her personal, research and clinical experience, alongside her personal and contextual experience of living in South-East London has channelled her focus on the PRiSM project. She hopes the project catalyses understanding, respect and action around faith, coping and equity in mental healthcare. She also hopes shifts in knowledge production mean that racially minoritised community members can have a direct say (and be listened to), in what matters most to them for better mental health.

Denise Richards

Denise Richards is an independent community researcher, with 15 years of experience. She joined the PRiSM project as she feels mental health, trauma and the root causes of behaviours need to be fully understood and better recognised across healthcare services and churches. Over the past 18 months, Denise has continued to work behind the scenes and with various organisations and projects. Her vast lived experience and interactions within the community has now positioned her as an Advocate for those under the Mental Health system, within her local hospital. Not only is this a great achievement, but also acknowledges the voice of the community, to which she has always been so passionate and committed. Her devoted faith has also made an impact on being able to have conversations with church leaders around Mental Health issues within the community and even within their establishments. Denise found this the most challenging aspect, as the stigma and limited understanding/acceptance, was always dismissed.

Winston Webber

Evangelist Winston C Webber is a Theologian, a Development Economist, an Accredited Preacher at South London Mission Bermondsey and a Community Worker. As an Evangelist, Winston supports people with mental health issues but does not always feel well equipped to support them. Winston’s involvement with the PRISM project is to see how churches could be enabled to assist members of their congregation with mental health issues. Winston suffered from depression and anxiety during the Rebel War in Sierra Leone and when he first arrived in the UK as a Political Refugee and Asylum Seeker in 1998. Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in 2011, Winston has survived it after successful robotic surgery in 2012. He is developing a Men's Awareness Programs especially for those with mental health issues after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Revd. Gail Thompson

Revd. Gail Thompson is the founder and CEO of Millennium Community Solution CIC. She is committed to serving her community, including running many community projects in Lambeth. She joined the PRiSM project as she felt the aim to move away from the extractive model of social research, and the empowering of the community approach to affect positive change by participation and lived experience, was a great opportunity. 

Professor Stephani Hatch

Professor Stephani Hatch is the Vice Dean for Culture, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Sociology and Epidemiology leading the Health Inequalities Research Group at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London. Stephani co-leads the Marginalised Communities programme, including the CONNECT study at the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health CSMH, KCL. Stephani has over 25 years of experience across sectors, locally and nationally, delivering interdisciplinary health inequalities research with an emphasis on race at the intersection of other social identities. She is Principal Investigator for the TIDES study and co-leads and co-leads the development of the Health and Social Equity Collective, funded by King’s College London and Impact on Urban Health. Stephani integrates collaborative approaches to knowledge production and dissemination, action and outreach in training and research through HERON, which she founded in 2010. She also leads equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives and has national and international advisory roles in health and volunteer and community sectors, including as a member of the NHS RHO Board. She was Sanchika’s primary PhD supervisor.

Dr Charlotte Woodhead

Dr Charlotte Woodhead (she/her) was a Lecturer in Society and Mental Health, within the Marginalised Communities programme at CSMH. She was a co-Principle Investigator for the HSE Collective, leads the STEP study, and also co-leads work within the CONNECT study, TIDES study and the HIRG. As a mixed methods researcher, Charlotte's interests are in understanding social/structural determinants of mental ill health; how and when people’s mental health is influenced by the social world; and where intervening might have the most positive influence. Charlotte is also interested in increasing equity of access to, mental health support for young adults, LGBTQ+, low income and racial and ethnic minority groups. She was Sanchika’s secondary PhD supervisor.

Nathan Stanley

Nathan Stanley is an Evaluation Lead at Black Thrive Global. He was a Research Assistant at KCL for the TIDES study, which aimed to aim to understand how discrimination contributes to inequalities in health and health services. He was also a core team member of the Health and Social Equity Collective and a volunteer with Reach Society, a social enterprise that aims to inspire and encourage young people, especially Black boys to realise their potential. Nathan joined PRiSM because as a young Black person of faith, he feels there is great benefit in investigating the role faith and faith-based organisations have in coping with mental illness, given the clinical misinterpretations of what spirituality and religion means for members of the Black community. He hopes PRiSM sparks conversations within Black Majority Churches, and the wider community when it comes to mental health. He also hopes 

Anna-Theresa Jieman

Anna-Theresa Jieman is a PhD candidate at QMUL. Her collaborating partners are Black Thrive Lambeth and Catalyst 4 Change Birmingham, and the NIHR Applied Research collaboration, North Thames, has adopted the project. Drawing on the framework of intersectionality in general and the Strong Black woman schema, Anna’s PhD project (Black Women’s Identity and Depression study(BWID)) investigates how and why gender and race might work together to shape the experience, treatment and outcomes associated with depression among Black women. The project is guided by an advisory group of Black women with lived experiences of depression and practitioners that have worked with Black women. Anna joined PRiSM for its community engagement approach and to collaborate with like-minded researchers. She hopes the project starts partnerships between clinicians, church leaders and policymakers so religious/spiritual coping might be considered in mental health practice.

Dr Chanelle Myrie

Dr Chanelle Myrie was the lead psychologist at STEP, a service which supports people experiencing their first episode of psychosis in Southwark. She has previously led a range of psychological services, including a service facilitating access to psychological support for people from ethnically marginalised communities. Chanelle has previously worked as an Academic Tutor on a Clinical Psychology Doctoral training course, supervising theses on first episode psychosis and Black mental health. Chanelle is particularly interested in facilitating access to therapeutic interventions for those that are ethnically marginalised, and rectifying barriers to meaningful interventions. Chanelle was involved in analysing interviews within the PRiSM project.

Dr Juliana Onwumere

Dr Juliana Onwumere is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience King’s College London. She is also a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Her complementary research and clinical

interests focus on the intersectionality of mental health problems, family relationships, and health across the lifespan. She is interested in caregiving relationships affected by violence and the interface between mental

and physical health. Juliana has a growing interest in health inequalities particularly in racial and ethnic minority groups. Her work includes the development of evidence-based psycho-social interventions and workforce training and supervision initiatives to support their increased access by underserved groups. She developed the first massive open online course (MOOC) designed for carers of people with psychosis and schizophrenia: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/caring-psychosis-schizophrenia