The Centre is a specialist therapeutic service for minority ethnic clients based at the Marlborough Family Service which is a Mental Health Service for children, adults and families within the NHS.
The Marlborough Cultural Therapy Centre (MCTC) was created 12 years ago to bridge the gulf between mainstream Child and Adolescent Mental Health services and minority ethnic communities. An outreach service for the Bangladeshi and Chinese community was set up by the Marlborough Family Service (MFS), with personnel (with experience in community and mental health work) recruited from BME communities.
The workers were offered an in-house tailored training programme which contextualised ideas about health and illness within a cultural framework alongside a diploma in systemic family therapy training. In turn, these workers trained MFS staff in the use of culturally appropriate interventions.