About Us

 

The Black Wellness Initiative (BWI) was born from consultations In Derby UK in mid to late 2006 as a direct result of a group of people of Afrikan descent’s expressed wish to take greater and direct control of planning and providing “talking therapies” to people of Afrikan descent who were using mental health care services and particularly in light of a deemed majority being of Afrikan descent. This group took part in a Wellness Recovery Action Programme (WRAP) programme and agreed to implement WRAP as a complimentary process to the statutory Care Programme Approach (CPA) used in the NHS Trusts.

Thus the BWI is a community entity that aspires to represent and model effective ethnocentric wellness approaches in planning and providing services.

We use the following terms very often wellness and ethnocentrism and therefore it is important to set a context in which they arise for us;

 

Ethnocentrism

Our view is of a primer that combats stereotyping by emphasising the importance of recognising the diversity that exists within and between communities. Consideration of the individual patient/user’s social context and place in their community is important for avoidance of stereotyping and for understanding the context in which the person’s mental health and/or mental illness occurs .

Wellness

In our use of the term each person defines what ‘wellness’ means for them and becomes active in addressing the elements that will help them attain wellness within and with help from a community setting/context that they define. In its purest form this approach is contrary to the existing “expert” model where the “expertise” resides in the professional and the ill person is a reservoir of information which the former uses to determine what is wrong with the patient.

Recovery

Building on the NIMHE UK definition of “Recovery”;

Recovery is what people experience themselves as they become empowered to manage their mental illness and/or substance misuse in a manner that allows them to achieve a meaningful life and a positive sense of belonging in their community.

Recovery is not what services do to or for people (Extract from the NIMHE Guiding Statement on Recovery)

We define recovery as the process through which people exercise power about their return to a sense of wellness and resilience.