Meet Humaira Saleem, Head Teacher of Iqra VA Primary School

The Be Well hubs initiative is about getting people connected to each other and to the right services. This means strengthening both the relationships in existing community institutions themselves – whether it is in a school, place of worship, or simply somewhere people gather – as well as the relationship between these places and their local statutory health services and local government.  

The initial vision - born out of south London community leaders listening to their communities - was for nobody to be more than ten minutes away from being connected to someone who can help them with their mental health. 

Mental Health Champions have received training to help people whose mental health is suffering to get the support that they need.  

Humaira Saleem is head teacher of Iqra Primary School in Lambeth, which is on its way to becoming a Be Well hub, having trained parents and community members to become mental health champions.

The school, parents and children are no strangers to grass roots work. The community is continuing its passion for social mobility and building resilience in the face of considerable social challenges facing the Muslim community.

“We took part in the Be Well training because we believe in action,” said Humaira. “During the pandemic when the conversation around wellbeing was happening, we had already been supporting children’s wellbeing from a school perspective. We soon realised that this could be a wider project to support the mental health of our community and had the potential to change people’s lives.

“I went along to the meeting from the perspective of finding out about the needs of the Muslim Community. Lots of parents turned up – it struck a chord with them.”

Mental health and Islam

“Our school is a representation of the wider Muslim community in Lambeth,” said Humaira.

“Faith is a crucial part of protecting mental health and wellbeing but mental health is not always well understood, partly because of the stigma attached to it.

“There are concerns that treatment for mental health may be against the faith or not provided from an Islamic perspective. Being able to bridge the gap between NHS providers of professional help and people who can bring the perspective of faith, and properly sign post to services, is crucial.

“Seeking help doesn’t make you less Muslim. If people know they have a safe place where they can talk to people confidentially, that gives them great confidence.”

Impact on parents

Humaira is passionate about empowering parents. “If we can support parents, they will be in a better position to support their children, who can grow in a culture where it is okay to share their feelings,” said Humaira.

“Parents are incredibly resilient – they have faced challenges in abundance across our community – Islamophobia, migration, poverty,  language. Because we work so closely with the community, we really understand them, and we know that we need to march on and look after each other at the same time.”

Looking to the future

Humaira is hearing anecdotal evidence of mental health being mentioned more frequently in the community. “When we have fully launched the Be Well Hub we will be able to have more constructive conversations,” she explained. 

“From my point of view, as a leader of a Muslim School, I’m glad that provided an opportunity to our parents to get trained for the Be Well hub. They will be driving this project.

“We now want to bring in other Muslim organisations including mosques where we know we can have a big impact in a trusted environment. Our aim is to provide continuous training and to keep encouraging people to seek mental health support.”

Parent perspective

Awo Salah, one of the parents who trained to run the Be Well Hub said: “At Iqra we felt we had a duty to establish a Be Well Hub accessible to all those in our community. Sadly, there are many misconceptions surrounding mental health which often stems from culturally biases rather than religious understanding.

“We felt that we could de-stigmatise mental health through the context of faith and provide confidence to our community in seeking support. Our faith holds a wealth of strategies designed to promote positive mental health, such as showing gratitude, establishing and maintaining ties of kinship, and giving to those less fortunate.

“By establishing this hub, we felt we could revive neglected Sunnahs of the Prophet (SAW) whilst signposting to services that can alleviate financial, health and social struggles.”