How Kooth is tackling barriers to mental health support for young Muslims

As part of our mission to tackle health inequalities, we work directly with underrepresented groups to understand and address the barriers they face and shape our services around what they truly need.

One example of this work comes from London, where stakeholder engagement showed that some children and young people (CYP) from Muslim communities were facing significantly higher barriers to accessing mental health support. 

Across multiple boroughs, a consistent theme emerged: stigma and cultural norms around mental health were preventing some young people from seeking help.

Mental health: a private, family matter?

Mental health continues to be viewed by some as a “private family matter”; there is often shame associated with speaking about personal or family issues outside the home. Research shows that Muslim individuals are more likely to turn to family members (21%) or religious leaders (19%) rather than mental health professionals (11%).

One young person who identified as Muslim highlighted issues they faced in seeking support:

Understanding cultural barriers and improving access

Kooth launched a three-step initiative to better understand these cultural barriers and improve access and engagement among Muslim CYP. 

1. 1.

   We worked closely with community partners including Muslim Women’s Network, Muslim Youth Helpline, Citizens UK, and the East London Mosque’s Maryam Centre, gathering feedback and co-producing new, culturally sensitive content. We also consulted local Imams and clinicians to better understand faith-informed needs and practices.

2. 2.

   Armed with this learning, our community engagement team visited schools and colleges during Ramadan, running tailored workshops and sharing new materials, reaching over 5,000 CYP, as well as hundreds of teachers and parents.

3. 3.

   Our content team developed new articles and podcasts in partnership with Muslim contributors, covering themes like faith, stigma, identity, and role models. 

We also asked our service users what changes they wanted to see - many asked for the introduction of Kooth avatars wearing hijabs and shaylas. These avatars are now available and are being chosen by hundreds of young Muslim users across the UK, improving representation and inclusion on our platform.

How did this activity impact access and inclusion?

We saw a 163% increase in engagement through school workshops, and a 100% rise in registrations for our professional training webinars on mental health stigma in Muslim communities. One teacher shared that a KoothTalks webinar helped them better support a young convert to Islam who was uncertain about taking ADHD medication due to faith concerns.

One of our Muslim stakeholders creating content with us said:

“I wanted to say a big thank you for giving me this opportunity to write a piece near and dear to me, it's been a dream to share my voice and help out a bigger audience. … I'm sure the younger generation of muslims will take so much from this.”

What began as a local project in North East London is now informing how we engage with Muslim communities across the UK, including in Birmingham, Blackburn and Darwen, Glasgow and Bradford. Learnings have been adopted by all Kooth engagement leads, who collectively reached over 800,000 people in 2024 alone.

This initiative is now a flagship example of our whole population approach. With training from experts like Dr Iram Sattar, MBE, now embedded across our teams, this work is helping shape a more inclusive, responsive and equitable mental health support system for everyone.