Summary
Aim:
To gather evidence from experienced professionals working in a variety of agencies about how to effectively engage Gypsies and Irish Travellers.
Objectives:
1)Describe practices that result in meaningful outcomes for Gypsies and Irish Travellers
2)Describe the process of successful work with Gypsies and Travellers for those working in statutory bodies
3)Describe the pitfalls and how to avoid them
Method:
Qualitative approach, describing successful working practices in detail using a semi - structured interview. The sample will be approximately four professionals who are have successfully engaged Gypsies and Irish travellers while working for a statutory or voluntary agency.
Results:
Four professionals were interviewed, two from voluntary sector agencies, one from the NHS and one from a Children’s Centre. The overarching themes that were identified from their interviews as being key to working with Gypsies and Irish Travellers were; building trust and relationships, community development and successful practices, partnership working, cultural competence and poor practice and pitfalls.
Conclusions:
The five overarching themes identified by the interviews help to describe some of the key issues that should be considered before starting any work with Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities. A key premise of successful work that runs through all of the identified themes is that of trust and transparency; the concept that individuals who work with these communities have to be open and honest in order to build trust. It was also obvious from those that had worked with Gypsies and Irish Travellers for a few years that there was a great deal of respect for the community members they worked with and empathy for the stigma and discrimination that people face on an often daily basis.
1) Introduction:
This report will describe work with Gypsies and Irish Travellers in a variety of statutory and voluntary settings. Based on interviews with professionals working in these settings, this report will identify the main themes that they have identified that that constitute good practice when engaging with these communities.
This report will also describe process of successful engagement and methods for measuring success as identified by those interviewed. It will also examine the pitfalls that should be avoided for those who wish to start working with Gypsies and Irish Travellers to improve health and wellbeing.
2) Methods
A semi – structured interview was conducted to elicit detailed responses about successful working practices. The interview and informed consent process are outlined in Appendix 1.
Eight professionals who are known have successfully engaged Gypsies and Irish Travellers were identified through contacts at Leeds GATE. Of these eight that were approached to take part, four agreed to be interviewed.
The interviews were conducted over the phone and recorded electronically;a third party then transcribed them. The interviews were then analysed and common themes identified that will help to inform the production of a Department of Health toolkit.
3) Case - studies
Four professionals were interviewed, two from voluntary sector agencies, one from the NHS and one from a Children’s Centre. The following is a summary of their roles and a description of the type of work they do with Gypsies and Irish Travellers; this section will provide context to the responses to interview questions.
3.1
Interviewee:Sarah Mann (SM)
Organisation: Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT)
Job Title:Training and capacity Building Manager
Description:
FFT is a registered charity. The objective of the organisation is to work towards a more equitable society where everyone has the right to travel and to stop without constant fear of persecution because of his or her lifestyle and culture. FFT responds to the needs of the community as a whole and works with Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers and new travellers.They were set up following the Criminal Justice Act of 1994, which criminalized trespass and created legal barriers to the rights of individuals to lead nomadic lifestyles.
The organisation works locally, regionally and nationally. National work includes a telephone helpline and policy work with the Department of Health, Traveller Law Reform Project and Ministry of Justice. Regional work covers South East, South West and East England and focuses on community development work and capacity building in these three regions. Local work in Sussex includes a community support worker programme, a youth outreach project and a local health and wellbeing team. Their work includes advocacy, legal advice, training for mainstream organisations and capacity building.
3.2
Interviewee:Gill Francis (GF).
Organisation:NHS Haringey
Job Title:Health Inclusion Worker for Gypsiesand Travellers
Description:
The need for this role became apparent after a measles outbreak among the Traveller community in Haringey, which prompted the formation of a Traveller Health reference Group, made up representatives from the local Traveller Education Service, London Gypsy Traveller Unit, the PCT and Health Protection Agency. An existing, and dormant, Traveller’s Health Visitor post was redesigned to work from a whole family approach.
The role involves working with Roma, English Gypsies and Irish Travellers to improve health and wellbeing through advocacy, referral and signposting. Clients are supported to access services in an appropriate and timely way and the aim is to work towards clients being able to do these things independently.
Another major part of the role is involvement in the development of a Gypsy and Traveller strategy at borough level, alongside Team Hackney. There is also work with statutory and voluntary partners to provide training for health, education and social care staff.
3.3
Interviewee:Karen Harvey (KH).
Organisation: SureStartChildren’s Centre, Great Yarmouth
Job title:Manager
Description:
Children’s centres are developed in line with the needs of the local community. There is a core set of services they must provide including; child and family health services such as health visitors; childcare and early learning; advice on parenting and access to specialist serviceslike speech therapy, healthy eating advice, help with managing moneyand help to find work or training opportunities.
The Children’s Centre in Great Yarmouth mainly works with Irish Travellers from the local site. A specialist Health Visitor for migrant workers and Travellers runs a clinic from the children’s centre and does outreach work on site, alongside a member of the children’s centre staff. The work with Travellers is relatively new, however mums are starting to bring their children to the centre and a community building is being developed on the Traveller’s site, which it is hoped will facilitate further outreach and activity programmes from the children’s centre and a variety of other agencies including the local GP practice.
3.4
Interviewee: Jon Hindley (JH).
Organisation: Healthy Living Network Leeds
Job Title: Projects Manager
Description:
Healthy Living Network Leeds are a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity who aim to build capacity andaddress health inequalities through sharing information and building relationships and trust within local communities. They work to the principles and values of community development, empowerment and self - determination. They aim to enable and empower the people of Leeds to make small changes towards a healthier lifestyle, and encourage a sense of well being through a range of projects and services.
Work with Gypsies and Irish Travellers:
Healthy living Network Leeds (HLN) have been working in partnership with Leeds GATE for three years to run Community Health Educator courses for the Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities. The director of Leeds GATE suggested the idea for these sessions around six years ago, but it wasn’t until 2008, when funding became available from the NHS, that the sessions could start.
As a starting point for the pilot programme in 2008 staff from Leeds GATE and HLN went out to into the community to discuss with women what they wanted from sessions like these; what content, where it should be held, how long sessions should run for and so on.
From the start sessions have adapted according to what participants want in terms of structure and content. The sessions are now in two sections; a health topic that participants agree is of importance and a healthy cooking session. Activities include discussions about childhood immunisations, fitness classes, self-defence and relaxation.
Childcare provision and transport enables women to attend and the major benefits of the sessions are not solely from the health information given. The mental health and emotional benefits the women appear to experience come from having the opportunity to step out of normal life for a few hours and being able to discuss more intimate or taboo subjects such as sex education or domestic violence.
3) Results:
The transcribed interviews were analysed with a view to identifying themes that would provide further information about successful working practices, pitfalls to avoid and key issues that people planning to work with Gypsies and Irish Travellers might want to consider.
Themes:
Theme 1.Building trust and relationships
Starting points:
A very strong theme across all four interviews was the importance of not going into this kind of work cold, but ensuring that there was an introduction from a trusted worker or organisation.
SM discusses how all their new staff members are introduced to community members by someone else ‘who already knows the family or who already knows the individual’. She goes on to suggest that this is critical for the first introduction and that working for a trusted organisation is also helpful to start building relationships.
JH also suggests using an organisation that has already built trust with the communities ‘would be logical starting point for them to start doing some work’, while both GF and KH recall that their own starting points were to link in with agencies or professionals that had already built relationships;
“ Well the main thing is that I was linked with those agencies that were involved in the setting up of the job like the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit with Hackney Homes who had relationships with Travellers so I could have an introduction and try and have a bit of credibility” (GF)
“The specialist Health Visitor who’s much more experienced in this area and she’s made a big impact going on site and obviously caring for the women and the children…I’ve had a member of staff that did some training and then was going out to offer some activities alongside the specialist” (KH)
Expectations of new workers:
SM suggests that new workers shouldn’t expecting people to confide personal issues to them straight away, but that the worker should accept the presenting issue. Demonstrating success in dealing with what will probably be a technical and ‘non – emotive’ issue helps to build trust in that individual.
GF also mentions that from a statutory agency perspective it’s important not to ‘parachute’ in your expertise and think you’re going to go in and save the community from themselves, but to take time to build partnerships with the community.
Building trust:
Another strong theme across all of the interviews was the length of time it takes to build trust with community members once a worker has made links. Two participants also discussed what appears to be almost an ingrained mistrust of professionals from statutory organisations.
GF says that despite introductions by local agencies anddoing a lot of legwork on site telling them people about her role, she struggled to build her caseload, as trust was slow to develop. As a result it was six to eight months before she got her first case. She goes on to elaborate that part of the problem is a cultural mistrust of statutory services, especially social workers;
“I would tell people that (my job title), all they heard was worker and then they’d think Social Worker so unfortunately for Social Workers they’re associated in the Traveller community about taking children away and so I think there was a mistrust because of that”.
SM also mentions the widespread mistrust of statutory services within these communities;
“I would add a note of caution which is that workers from statutory services will need to recognise that because they come from a statutory organisation there may always be a barrier or element of fear there because they are linked into enforcement services… it’s likely they work in a social services environment or an education environment or within a planning authority linked to those individuals and that they will have a corporate responsibility…the Travellers they work with will be aware of that because you’re part of that organisation and so people are going to be wary about telling you something that may lead to an unfavourable action against them.”(SM)
She goes on to say that lack of trust and low expectations are even more acute for those who are homeless within these communities;
“…on an unauthorised site the families are going to be aware that in twenty-four hours they might be evicted now how much trust are you going to get?How much are people going to open up to you when you’re into that situation where people are playing a game for survival”(SM)
Slowly building trust:
According to GF one reason it may take a while to build trust is due to fears about confidentiality and goes on to suggest that this is something that can take time to overcome;
“…sometimes Travellers will ask you something about somebody else, I’m always very careful not to discuss anybody, so because they’ve seen that when asking about other people I think that’s built trust so that (they know) when they’re ready to talk to me I’ll never talk to anybody else about their issues.”(GF)
SM goes into the issue of trust further, discussing how in her experience the steps to building trust are through practical help, advocacy and outreach and how if problems are resolved successfully and trust built that way this can eventually lead to requests for support with more personal issues such as emotional issues or domestic violence. However she also cautions that it can take several years before you get to this stage.
Theme 2.Community development and successful practices
Community development and confidence:
A community development approach was seen as the cornerstone of work with these communities. GF suggests that a community development approach is essential as “I can do crisis management work all day long, week in, week out, if I wanted to but there’s nothing that will lead to a reduction in the need for me if there’s not the development work.”
Initial contact with clients who have become more involved in activities such as training, management committees or peer education has often been the advocacy or support work mentioned above. From this starting point a great deal of work goes into building skills and confidence before an individual can feel empowered to manage their own lives, get further training or become and advocate for their own community.
SM suggests that trust forms the basis of community development work and it isn’t until this base has been formed that individuals within the community can start to feel confident enough to become more involved with other activities. However this can be a time consuming process;
“none of the individuals who came to do that (cultural awareness) training with us for none of them was it their first engagement with us, some of those individuals we will have been working with over a number of years perhaps going back five years or more”(SM)
Offering opportunities for clients to become more involved with activities requires having a lot of opportunities available that might appeal to people and also being aware that people will be‘ready to engage with different things at different stages in their lives’(SM).
Expanding on this SM goes on to say that it is important that people using a community development approach have to have realistic expectations about the capacity of individuals who are requiring support around issues such as mental health, domestic violence or accommodation.
JH discusses that he felt that having the same people each week meant that community members got to know the staff, who have now been consistent figures throughout the three years the project has been running. Now he finds that the women ‘would just say anything to you in the end which was a great compliment really as it meant they felt really easy…’ and that ‘it developed into something quite strong really’