Researchers: Irit Elroy¹, Ivonne Mansbach-Kleinfeld², Ilana Farbstein³, Sami Mahajna⁴

Background: One way to reduce inequality in health is to deliver culturally-adapted services by including therapists from the same target population in the provision of care. However, In Israel, there is a significant shortage of Arab mental health professionals.
Goals: To identify obstacles and supporting factors in the process of recruiting and training Arab mental health professionals; to learn about the existing solutions and to identify possible solutions to reduce the shortage.

Method: 52 in-depth interviews with: Arab psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical social workers; senior staff in government offices and the health plans; senior academics and key stakeholders in the Arab community.

Findings: We found structural, cultural and economic obstacles throughout the three career tracks in mental health. We found few supporting factors and few existing solutions to integrate Arabs into these disciplines. Some of the solutions that were proposed addressed the obstacles facing those who wish to work in this area (concessions in acceptance to the track, provision of scholarships and cultural adaptation of the training) while others were aimed at increasing the pool of potential candidates by exposing them to mental health and reducing the stigma.

Conclusions: Although the issue is on the agenda of several organizations, the existing solutions are sporadic, localized and not systematic. Since the obstacles are not confined to a particular phase of the training track, the interventions must be long-term and system-wide.

Recommendations: In the short term, action should be taken to retrain staff from related professions (social work or educational psychology) and to provide incentives to work in this area. In the long term there is a need to raise awareness of the mental health discipline and to create culturally-adapted training tracks. These activities must be carried out in cooperation and coordination among the various stakeholders.

Research end date: 11/2017