Reaching Communities Project
We have always carried out our outreach support on a “whole family” holistic basis and when our outreach staff were visiting families to help them to access their health and social care needs it was becoming apparent that there could be a whole range of other support needs that the family had which were not being met. These might range from welfare benefit or housing issues to needing help in accessing other basic services, and might well amount to the sort of support that a Citizens Advice Bureau might typically offer. However it was clear that families needed help and support, beyond mere signposting, in order to be able to access these advice services and also that the providers themselves needed to gain a better understanding and ability to meet the needs of their local Travelling communities. This was the basis of the Reaching Communities Project: working to support families across East Sussex but also acting as a vital conduit between the community and the service providers to help make their services more accessible.
We have now completed the second year of this 5 year Big Lottery funded project (2009-2010), which now covers both East and West Sussex.
Bek and Marya, our two Community Support Workers have had contact with 409 Gypsies and Travellers across Sussex this year, a similar number to last year. Significantly though, the number of Gypsies and Travellers who received a mainstream advice or support service rose from 72 last year to 277 this year. Over the first 2 years of the project, the Community Support Workers have built trust with Gypsies and Travellers through regular and dedicated outreach. This has enabled clients to open up about their needs and trust the Community Support Workers to support them to access the mainstream services they need but were not accessing.
We are also experiencing a phenomenon whereby clients who were successfully helped to access less sensitive issues such as housing in year 1, have returned to resolve more sensitive health and education issues. Some clients are also asking to be supported to resolve underlying issues (such as lack of skills) once initial crises have been resolved.
Much work has come through word of mouth referral through extended family such as cousins, aunts and uncles. We know from experience that this is a trusted way of finding information and services. We have also found that when one person has successfully accessed a mainstream service (such as CAB, doctor/dentist) other members of the extended family will approach us wanting access to similar services.
The range of issues raised by clients is very wide. The two most frequent issues are general health and accommodation at 25% each. Debt, benefits (often appeals), child protection, mental health and dental services also feature regularly.
Gypsies and Travellers have been supported to access nearly 100 different mainstream agencies. As well as health and accommodation providers, CAB has been used regularly with good relationships being built with several agencies some of who have accessed training or awareness raising to improve the cultural competence of their service.
Case study
Young Gypsy male client with pregnant girlfriend was homeless and had an older child in care (removed from the mother). He was initially supported to access housing and child protection cases for older child. He is now housed and has secured custody of older child and is independently engaging with mainstream services and seeking full time employment. This is six months on from our initial engagement.
Trust has been built for Gypsies and Travellers in particular services which have now gained a reputation within the communities – CAB and some health providers are key examples. The reverse has applied where some agencies have given negative outcomes or poor welcomes. We have also found that some large agencies are not always able to adjust their working practices to outreach successfully.
The project has confirmed to us the benefits of a “whole family” approach to working with Gypsies and Travellers. Our Community Support Workers are part of a wider team which includes health, mental health, social care and work with young people and there is a very high degree of informal cross referral between team colleagues.
We have also had our experience reinforced of the power of referral onwards through the extended family networks within the Gypsy and Traveller communities and the importance of building a reputation and trust over time.
Sarah Mann
Training and Capacity Building Manager
