Ms Emilia Marchelewska:

Just briefly. If the question is primarily about vulnerability or the groups most at risk, it is definitely a matter of intersectionality. If you are a woman from a forced migration background, and if there is previous trauma or even childhood trauma, and now you live in direct provision, you will be in a more vulnerable situation. That should be considered. The research definitely says that those who come through forced migration channels are more vulnerable due to the accumulation of pre-migration and post-migration stressors. The research that has just been published, which analysed the psychological distress of newly arrived people seeking international protection, analysed data from 2019 and shows that women coming from Zimbabwe are in the highest psychological distress.

I am an EU migrant. As a community, as community leaders, we think we are sometimes a little forgotten because maybe we do not have it that bad and we enjoy a number of privileges that others do not have. Still, however, the EU migrants or the Roma migrants who access mental health services here, as I said, are a significant proportion of the people who access services who may have additional challenges as regards language, for instance. Looking at the solutions and the collaborative approaches, I am on the board and am chair of Centrum Konsultacyjno-Terapeutyczne, CKU, which is a counselling service for eastern Europeans. Communities are coming up with solutions by themselves and just need to be at the centre of the system. The healthcare system does collaborate with communities to fill in the gaps, and migrants are very resourceful and there is a lot of innovation coming. Take MyMind, it was set up by my colleague, a Polish migrant and psychologist, and is now one of the most innovative services in the country. It is a matter of looking at this from a positive angle in terms of the opportunities that exist and good practice models.