IMAMS in Lancashire have been taking part in a mental health-training programme to raise awareness of the issue in the local Muslim community.
The programme, which had its launch in Burnley and Pendle last week, hopes to dispel myths about mental health issues and inform imams about the various help services available to the community suffering from mental health problems.
The pilot project is being initiated by the area’s community health provider NHS East Lancashire.
Mental health development team leader with NHS East Lancashire, Shakil Salam, said: "This is a unique training project across East Lancashire and the response from mosques and faith leaders has been very positive. This an encouraging start to the initiative."
He added: "In the South Asian community mental health is still seen as a taboo subject.
"When people suffer from physical pain they tend to go to the doctors but when they are suffering from mental health problems which can be depression or anxiety they tend not to seek medical help and often go and speak to their imams and sometimes people have even visited spiritual healers about their problems.
"For this reason we thought of getting imams and the local mosques on board so we can raise awareness about mental health and let them know about the service provision available to people who are suffering.
"The imam can then refer people onto services that can help them."
There will be a total of five workshops lead by health professionals and up to 20 faith leaders have already taken part in the first session.
If the workshops are successful the initiative will then be extended to the rest of Lancashire.
Added Mr Salam: "During and after the training, the faith leaders will have the opportunity of continuous engagement with the mental health development team in terms of input into the planning of mental health services.
"We are also here to listen and take on any suggestion by the imams.
"Some of the imams are already preparing sermons around the issues for Friday prayers and we have been able to input in that as well.
"The response has been great as this has given the community the opportunity to start talking about issues surrounding mental health."
The launch of the project was held last week with guest speaker, Public Health Director, Dr Ellis Friedman who spoke at the event held at Brierfield Community Centre.
Faith leaders from the local Muslim community attended the launch event.
PCT's head of Black and Minority Ethnic Health, Sohail Bhatti said: "I am excited by the degree of enthusiasm we have detected amongst faith leaders for this programme.
"This is part of an extensive series of activities NHS East Lancashire is launching to address minority ethnic health issues as part of it's ‘Save A Million Years Of Life’ initiative. These communities have some of the poorest outcomes and access to services."
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Muslim parents teach their children to respect their teachers. From a very young age, we are taught that Islam teaches us that after our parents, our teachers are most deserving of respect. It must be an extremely confusing time for the Muslim parent in Leytonstone, London. For up to 30 parents may face prosecution for withdrawing their children from school, disobeying the teachers in the school, simply to secure a decent moral upbringing for their children. The school had decided to have a week of lessons about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history. Part of this was a special adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet retitled Romeo and Julian as well as fairytales and stories changed to show men falling in love with men. Rather than filling the heads of impressionable boys and girls with fatuous drivel about gay penguins, schools should be ashamed of the fact that they are sending children out into the world barely able to read, write and add up properly. Muslim children are leaving schools without learning their cultural roots and linguistic skills.
The action was being taken against the parents as part of a policy of ' promoting tolerance'. So why not tolerate parents, who, for sincerely-held reasons, consider their children too young to be taught about gay relationships? This isn't education, its cultural fascism. A record numbers of pupils persistently played truant in 2006-07, with around 272,950 pupils persistently absent in 2007, missing more than 20% of school. We rarely see councils prosecute the parents of these persistent truants. Yet, the parents who removed their children as a one-off to protect their morality may be prosecuted!
If the local council does decide to go through with a prosecution, it would be in line with the government's approach to the Muslim community. Muslims who believe homosexuality is a sin would be labelled as extremists. Liberal totalitarianism is a growing phenomenon in Britain and the west in general but many people will be shocked that the school can override a parent's view of what's appropriate or inappropriate to teach their children.
This latest episode should be a wakeup call for Muslim parents. Muslim parents MUST explain our moral standards to schools and be prepared to take steps to protect our children’s morals and values from a growing agenda to impose liberal values upon them. This is an eye opening for those Muslim parents who keep on sending their children to state schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.
The solution of all the problems facing Muslim children is state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. Those state schools where Muslim children are in majority may be designated as Muslim community schools. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Iftikhar Ahmad
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