Reviews of Hári Sewell's book
"Working with Ethnicity Race and Culture in Mental Health:
A Handbook for Practitioners"
Nursing Standard (March 2009)
The service to our client group would improve beyond recognition if every mental health professional read this book. Hári Sewell, provides common sense approaches to culture and mental health. The questions at the end of each chapter provide opportunities to review practise in thought-provoking and non-threatening ways.
Sewell shows how to integrate best practice into any modern mental health service. A few hours with this book will provide more insight into the subject of race than many of the study days arranged by so-called experts.
The Psychologist (June 2009)
Every practitioner working in multicultural mental health services in the UK should find this book indispensable as it uncovers the importance of preconceived biases when working with service users from black and minority ethnic groups. Though the writing style is didactic and prescriptive, the recommendations are based on grounded research findings that emphasise changes that need to take place. Both from personal and managerial standpoints, the author forces the reader not to turn a blind eye to individual and institutional racism.
Sewell engages his audience in self-awareness by using examples based on mundane practise. The chapters are terse but accurate and therefore can be seen as a summative piece of the current state of knowledge in relation to the multi-ethnic service-user groups in mental health. But if the reader is looking for an international perspective or policy analysis this is not the book to start with.
The main strength of this read is that it is reflective of the current British patient cohort and as a result provides up-to-date practical knowledge to delivering and achieving to race equality.
British Journal of Social Work (March 2009)
The author has set out to meet the needs of basic-level front line practitioners who want to improve their working practices with people from black and minority ethnic groups (BME). With a particular focus upon the mental health field, the book meets a definite gap in the literature and will be of interest and value to many practitioners. With such an ambitious title, it is reassuring that, by and large, the content is rooted in what appears to be the author’s own extensive practice experiences. The foreword suggests that this is really a self-training book that will help improve those whose work is at the grass roots and who have little time for a more in-depth and perhaps academic text.
There are some especially useful parts to the book that should have a wider appeal than the intended audience. Of particular note is Chapter 1, with the emphasis of definitions and the understanding of the key terms ‘race’, ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’. This and the following chapter are where the author is at his most helpful, tackling head on issues of definition and applicability that are often ignored or that practitioners feel too inhibited to ask the difficult questions about.
Sewell has devised his own ‘seven elements for strengthening practice’, described in Chapter 6, and this will doubtlessly be helpful for those who need such a structure or guidelines when working with people from BME backgrounds who also have other ‘aspects’ to their identity. There is not too much theory to be found here but, instead, there are practical tips and helpful suggestions. This where the book is at its most useful, providing as it does a practice focus and readily accessible information for front line workers.
Alternatives to the ‘illness model’ are discussed, albeit briefly, in Chapter 9, as are the use of alternative approaches that are particularly relevant for a book with this focus on BME and the reality that psychiatry may not provide totally convincing explanations of phenomena that BME service users experience. Helpful examples of the Hearing Voices approach are used to illustrate the importance of alternative approaches. While the glossing over of key aspects and the compression of events like slavery and present-day cannabis use and mental health will cause some to want more, it may well be enough for a book like this.
As a ‘handbook’, the overall style allows for ‘dipping in and out’ pretty much at ease but, as a ‘self-training’ book, the use of exercises without answers leaves some doubts about the effectiveness on its own of this feature. For example, on p. 43, readers are invited to construct an action plan to overcome barriers to improving the effectiveness of work with BME service users or colleagues but no account is taken of the fact that the reader may not perceive that there is a problem or perhaps identify inappropriate actions.
Overall, an interesting book and although aimed at a specific market, it may also interest a broader range of people, especially students.