Cohort 2026 PhD Project
About The Project
Access to mental health care for ethnic minorities is not only surrounded by stigma, taboo, and shame but is further complicated by a lack of adequate, culturally informed service provision. When it comes to more specialist areas such as addiction support, the complexities and barriers to accessing appropriate services increase significantly. These include institutional racism, systemic disadvantage, mistrust in mainstream services, and treatment models that often do not recognise the lived realities, spiritual frameworks, or familial responsibilities of ethnic minority individuals. Shame, silence, and fear of judgment within families and communities often discourage individuals from seeking help, leaving them unsupported or misdiagnosed.
This project aims to better understand these dynamics through a collaboration with BAC-IN, a Nottingham-based, peer-led, grassroots addiction recovery organisation. BAC-IN is the first ethnic minority-led Lived Experience Recovery Organisation (LERO) in the UK. The organisation provides culturally grounded, trauma-informed recovery services, rooted in lived experience and trusted by local communities. Its approach is distinctly different from traditional clinical models and has already influenced national conversations around addiction and recovery.
The research will identify barriers to accessing addiction recovery support among ethnic minority communities, identify markers of good practice, and evaluate how culturally responsive models can better support individuals and families. It will adopt a qualitative methodology, specifically, a multi-perspective interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). This involves working with three key groups: individuals in recovery, their families, and the practitioners supporting them. Their perspectives will be analysed separately and then compared to generate a holistic and layered understanding of the challenges and opportunities within the current system.
Participants will be directly involved in shaping the research questions and interview tools, ensuring the research remains community-led and grounded in lived realities. The findings will generate actionable recommendations for improving local service provision in Nottingham, while also producing transferrable insights for national policy, cultural competency training, and the design of more inclusive services.
By amplifying the voices of those most affected yet often least heard, the project aims to decolonise service models, support peer-led approaches, and ultimately improve access to effective, culturally relevant addiction recovery services for ethnic minority communities.
This project has been co-created with and is supported by researchers from Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham and partners at Bac-In.
Project Aims
The overall aims of the project are:
To understand what holistic support looks like for ethnic minorities seeking addiction recovery support.
To understand the lived experience of ethnic minorities seeking support for addiction recovery, including challenges and positive experiences.
To understand what good practice looks like from a practitioner’s perspective.
Project Team
- PhD Candidate: Zahra Butt
- Lead Academic Supervisor: Dr Rahmanara Chowdhury (Nottingham Trent University)
- Academic Co-Supervisor: Dr Neema Begum (University of Nottingham)
- Community Supervisor: Sohan Sahota (Bac-In)