Home - Mental Health Race And Culture (mhrac)

Welcome to the personal website of Suman Fernando, psychiatrist, academic and writer

This site provides information on issues around ‘race’ and ‘culture’ in relation to mental health in western multi-ethnic societies, social and mental health care in low and middle income (‘third world’) countries, racism in psychiatry, and the ethnics of mental health practice in a multi-ethnic society. I hope this site is useful to researchers, writers, mental health professionals and the general public.

I was a consultant psychiatrist in the British National Health Service for over twenty years until the mid-1990s. Since then I have been an academic, a writer and an advisor on mental health practice and service provision. I was a member of the Mental Health Act Commission (a government inspectorate) for several years until 1995 where I chaired its National Standing Committee on Race and Culture. I am involved in voluntary organisations (NGOs) providing mental health services for people from minority ethnic ('racialised') groups in the UK and also for people in Sri Lanka. Here is a list of my appointments (click to see).

Also, I have an interest in legal safeguards for users of mental health services in the UK, especially around 'race', and I am involved in lobbying for changes in mental health service provision.

I am a writer - my main occupation now apart from lecturing / teaching (click here for publications). I have lectured and conducted many seminars for mental health professionals, and academics in the fields of social care and mental health, in UK, Canada and Sri Lanka. Latterly I have been involved in capacity building work in Sri Lanka (click her for more..) and in researching issues around mental health and mental health provision in low income countries click here for paper on this).