Event programme:

Date: 15 April 2021

Time: 1.00pm to 2.30pm

ON THE FRONTLINE:

Beverly Simpson from North West Migrant Forum

Beverly is a volunteer with the North West Migrant Forum and a nurse. She will share her professional experiences both in delivering health services to the BAME community and her own personal experience of accessing health services. In particular, she will consider:

• Types of cultural belief
• Language
• COVID-19 & its impact on BAME key workers

THE PRACTITIONER’S PERSPECTIVE:

Dr Donal McAteer & Dr Orla McDevitt-Petrovic from Ulster University

Building on Beverly’s ‘lived experience’, Donal and Orla, lecturers in Applied Psychology, will outline how they are training health care professionals to provide care to the BAME community. In particular, they will focus on:

• Best practice examples on maintaining ‘cultural competence’
• Working with translators
• Equality v. equitability in delivering services to the BAME community

THE POLICY PERSPECTIVE:

Joanne Doherty from the Public Health Agency (PHA) will provide an overview of current health and wellbeing support for BAME communities.

Other Contributors: 

SUPPORT: The role of employers

Sabrina Moore from the Work Well, Live Well programme (Developing Healthy Communities) gives a brief overview on employers can provide useful support to their BAME employers. Information on the funded support available in the Western Trust area.

SUPPORT: Availability of counselling services

Lekan Ojo-Okiji Abasi from Counselling All Nations Services (CANS) will tell us more about limited counselling services, funded by Comic Relief, which are currently available in the Western Trust area.

SUPPORT: Grant funding for new ideas

Erin Mc Feely from Developing Healthy Communities will tell us more about The Ideas Fund - a new grants programme to develop and test ideas related to areas of mental wellbeing. The Fund has been designed to promote diversity and inclusion – particularly in rural or minority ethnic communities or amongst young, marginalised or socioeconomically disadvantaged people who have been overlooked in the past.

SUPPORT: Good relations

Rumena Kostadinova-McCabe, Good Relations Officer at Fermanagh & Omagh District Council, will speak about the Council's 'From Around the World; Celebrating Our Cultures' Project which presents different cultures and traditions through an exhibition of photographs, personal stories, artefacts and voices of people who have made the district their home or have close connections to it.