Attempting to mainstream ethnicity in a multi-country EU mental health and social inclusion project: lessons for social work

The article will outline the logic, parameters, and methodology of an attempt at mainstreaming ethnicity within EMILIA, an EU 6th FP multi-sites project focused on mental health and social inclusion over two years. Led by two social work researchers within a large multi-disciplinary group consisting of eight sites spread across Southern, Central and Northern Europe, alongside mainstreaming gender, we will look at the findings of the baseline audit, the ensuing action plans and the changes which followed. Examining the process and its outcomes for mainstreaming across the different sites and the services they provide for people experiencing mental health problems highlights the impact of country-specific policies on disclosure of information pertaining to ethnicity as well as country and site policies and practices pertaining to recognising the existence of ethnic inequality and tackling it. Issues underlying formal mainstreaming staff and users' training will be explored. The role of social work within a multi-disciplinary group will also be looked at, and the lessons for European social work will be outlined. The lessons pertain in part to the impact of the wide ranging variation in background, scope and focus on the role social work values, knowledge and skills can play in the intersection between mental health, parameters of social inclusion and mainstreaming ethnicity.