Ask the Experts: Providing services for Travellers

I am working in a children’s centre in an area where there is a static Traveller site. I think we should be doing more to encourage Traveller families to use our services, but don’t know where to start.

In the 1980s, I worked on a playbus project that worked on a Traveller site in Devon. The first thing we had to consider was developing trust. It didn’t happen overnight, we were viewed with suspicion. But once they saw that we were genuinely offering a service for their children, we began to build relationships and offer play opportunities that their children could not have accessed otherwise.

Now it is much better practice to provide an inclusive service that all children and families can access in a supportive manner. Barnardo’s children’s centres work to engage the most marginalised groups of children and families, using a range of methods to communicate with them, including texting and going out to meet them in their own homes.

Every local authority has a Traveller liaison officer, so it would be a good idea to start there.

Answered by Jeanie Lynch, who works for Barnardo’s and has 25 years’ experience of working with vulnerable children and families