Mental health is something that affects almost everyone, whether you have one or you know someone with a mental illness, it impacts us and some communities like African immigrant communities. They understand it exists but don’t respect or acknowledge it and they pass that stigma onto their children immigrant parents grow up in their own culture and communities and learn everything from their parents and those around them so when they have their kids they teach them what they learned A lot of things affect the mental health of immigrant children such as cultural beliefs, mistrust of the system, parental views, and lack of access. In most African immigrant communities, the children usually stay with their parents even after college and because
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“. Mental health, mental illness, and help-seeking are misunderstood public health issues. Indigenous cultural stigma concerning mental illness and help-seeking and mistrust of Western medicine inhibit African immigrants from reporting mental illness and seeking treatment.”(Bartholomew Edem-Enang,2022) This confirms that their mistrust of mental health systems outweighs their need for help. And will also affect their children Now we've learned that not only does the mental health of the child matter but the parents do too and how their parents take care of their mental health is how their child will do the same. Overall, parents greatly affect the way children view their mental health and others with mental illness. This is all mainly due to cultural beliefs because parents want their children to remember their culture if they're no longer in their community and parts of the culture include discrimination against those with mental illnesses. And as a result, they also continue to treat it with traditional means or as “juju”. But it isn't the fault of the parent or their children, it's the toxic mentality that they grew up with. Which is why there's a lot of data, experiments, and essays being done. To help them understand the importance of their mental health, to let go of the toxic mentality, to learn to ask for
“. Mental health, mental illness, and help-seeking are misunderstood public health issues. Indigenous cultural stigma concerning mental illness and help-seeking and mistrust of Western medicine inhibit African immigrants from reporting mental illness and seeking treatment.”(Bartholomew Edem-Enang,2022) This confirms that their mistrust of mental health systems outweighs their need for help. And will also affect their children Now we've learned that not only does the mental health of the child matter but the parents do too and how their parents take care of their mental health is how their child will do the same. Overall, parents greatly affect the way children view their mental health and others with mental illness. This is all mainly due to cultural beliefs because parents want their children to remember their culture if they're no longer in their community and parts of the culture include discrimination against those with mental illnesses. And as a result, they also continue to treat it with traditional means or as “juju”. But it isn't the fault of the parent or their children, it's the toxic mentality that they grew up with. Which is why there's a lot of data, experiments, and essays being done. To help them understand the importance of their mental health, to let go of the toxic mentality, to learn to ask for