Advice and Information Unit
The FFT Advice & Information Unit, which has a national remit, is staffed by three full-time workers and two part-time workers. The Unit is open Monday to Friday from 10.00am to 5:00pm. The Unit is closed on Wednesdays.The Advice & Information Unit is recognised as having expertise in the law relating to Travellers, planning, education, accommodation and health issues affecting the Traveller community. The Unit carries out research, monitoring and mediation and has become increasingly active in policy development through work with local authorities and government.
The Unit also administers and delivers a range of projects:
- Travellers Advice Project
- Training the Teachers Project
- The Sussex Women’s Health Project.
Service Delivery
•Provision of advice and information to Travellers directly, either by phone, personal visit to our office, outreach work to sites or indirectly by advice to third party organisations.
•Legal advice and advocacy for individual Travellers, groups and families.
•Provision of professional statements on the need for sites and cultural aversion to ‘bricks and mortar’ accommodation at planning inquiries and injunction hearings to assist Travellers secure their own sites or influence decisions to evict from unauthorised sites.
•Provision of information to a range of inquirers, be they students, local authorities, other non-government organisations or the press.
•Liaison work with lawyers, legal organisations, local authorities, NGOs and police in relation to case work or policy development.
•Publication of educational and research material to either inform the Traveller community or to provide information about the Traveller community and their environment to others.
•Development and delivery of projects to benefit the Traveller community.
•Research into issues that affect Travellers and their families.
2006-2007
FFT offers advice, information and casework to all Gypsies and Travellers who seek our help and we monitor the profile of our client base to ensure that the service is reaching all sections of the travelling communities and all regions of the country. During 2006/7 our caseworkers dealt with a wide variety of cases from all across mainland UK, including Wales and Scotland. Approximately 54% of all our casework was with Gypsies, 27% was with Irish Travellers and 19% was with New Travellers. This represents a slight increase over the previous year in terms of the amount of work done on behalf of ‘traditional’ Travellers (Gypsies and Irish Travellers) compared with the percentage done on behalf of New Travellers.
The categories of casework that we provided covered a wide range of issues and problems although, unsurprisingly, many revolved around eviction, housing and planning issues. The full breakdown is as follows –
• 7% were about evictions
• 7% were about planning
• 3% were about health issues
• 11% were about sites
• 17% were about housing
• 6% were about education
• 6% were about the police
• 3% were about discrimination
• 11% were seeking legal advice
• 4% were about homelessness
• 4% were about benefits
• 11% were about grants
• 9% other
Often clients present with multiple issues and sometimes these can overlap, making categorisation difficult. However FFT will continue to seek to improve and refine its processes for data collection whilst ensuring that strict client confidentiality remains at the forefront of the work that we do.
For more, please read our Annual Report 2006-2007
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE WORK WE DO, PLEASE HELP US TO HELP THE TRAVELLER COMMUNITY BY BECOMING A MEMBER OR DONATING
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