Mental Health Act Assessments: No trace of race. The Role of the AMHP in antiracist practice.

Mental Health Act (MHA) assessments are challenging.  By their nature they indicate that some kind of crisis is occurring. Time is often limited in the MHA assessment interview.  Questions put to the patient by the Approved Mental Health Professional tend to be restricted to those evidently pertinent to the decision regarding whether an admission is necessary.

Race is always present in encounters because we are now all racialised beings. The times when it potentially becomes most invisible are when all those present are white. The presence of anyone from a minoritized racialised group in any situation forces race to be visible.