ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the specific issue of psychiatry and social work in the generations of West Indians living in Britain.
Nature of the community The community consists of a group of persons who migrated here mainly before 1962, persons born to these migrants, and in the third generation the children of these two groups. The third generation is almost entirely British-born, whilst the second generation is made up of groups that have had greater contact with both societies, through either birth or exposure during development. The community also includes smaller groups born to parents of different ethnic origin by the intermarriage of a West Indian with another ethnic partner. There is a small group of persons primarily of middle-class background who either have come here as a result of political pressures at home or, having studied here, have not returned home.
