Issue - meetings

The report will propose the deletion of the Gypsy, Roma and Travellers Education  team (equivalent of 3 members of staff).

The Committee had considered proposals to close the Gypsy, Roma & Traveller Education Team at their meeting on the 22 March. This was a non statutory service affected by the budget savings required by the directorate and Council.  The service had been operating for many years and was valued for its contributions to the Traveller, Gypsy Roma communities.  The service provided advice, guidance, training and support to Children Centres, schools and colleagues and undertook casework with children and their families. The Committee were informed that over recent years much good work had been done to equip, the settings outlined above, to meet the needs of Travellers and Gypsy Roma children. At the meeting in March the Committee had asked the service to complete a consultation exercise, in an appropriate format, in order to engage with the users and obtain their views on this unit closure. The consultation exercise had subsequently been carried out in April and May and had involved sending out 424 copies of letters to families that had been translated into Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish and distributed via the Ethnic Minority Achievement Co-ordinators in 42 schools. There were 90 letters sent to families whose children were waiting for a schools place or had recently joined a school. The letters were sent to Children’s Centres where there were service users from these communities.  Some letters were further followed up with telephone contacts. The Committee were informed that no written responses were received from users. There were two meetings organised in Wood Green Library for families from the Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities to attend.  Two families attended with translators present to provide their views on the closure of the service. The Committee noted that these families were very positive about the support they got from the service and spoke about the assistance they received with filling forms, accessing services, and enrolling their children in school. The Committee were advised that, although this was seen as helpful by the users, this was not part of the specification of this unit. This type of assistance could be provided by other voluntary sector providers in the borough. The Committee were assured that there were existing settings to meet the needs and responsibilities of this group and therefore were asked to agree the closure of this unit.

Concern was expressed by the Committee on the methods of communications used by the service for the consultation exercise. Letters had been sent to the Gypsy, Roma families when there was knowledge by the service that literacy was an issue. In the introduction to the report the Committee had been advised that letters had been followed up with telephone contact, however the details from this communication were not included in the report. In response to these concerns, the Deputy  Director for Children’s Networks, advised that the  Gypsy, Roma, Travellers Education team had completed  follow up  work on the consultation  documents by going out and visiting the families and using  the sources of contacts known to them to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 149