Equality impact assessment - Wiltshire traveller education service

Please tell us what you think about our website, we welcome your feedback.

Customer notice

Due to essential maintenance some of our web services will be unavailable between these times 7pm Friday 25 May and 5pm Sunday 27 May 2012.

1. What is the name of the policy or service that is being assessed?

Wiltshire Traveller Education Service (TES)

2. Identify aims

• The service aims to secure access to education, integration into school, regular school attendance, in–school support and higher achievement for traveller children and young people.
• The service also supports parents so that they can be more involved in their children’s education.
• The service works with schools to improve their capacity to meet traveller children’s needs.

This Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) is relevant to the groups: White British - includes canal, new, fairground and circus. Gypsy/Roma sited, housed and roadside English Gypsy Travellers, (no Roma at present), Irish Traveller sited, housed and roadside Irish Travellers. Other ethnicities occasionally with circus families.

The service supports traveller children/young people in Wiltshire and works across agencies to improve attendance and achievement. The service supports schools to be inclusive and provide staff and pupils with cultural awareness training. The service aims to increase participation and foster good relationships between school and home.

Poor access can prevent stakeholders from contacting the service. Lack of parental knowledge, fear of poor literacy skills, or an unwillingness to engage with school and agencies can lead to difficulties with engagement. Many traveller parents are non-ascribed due to the parents’ fear of prejudice and stereotyping from the outside communities. TES aims to help and support in all these areas of access.

The most successful communication with travellers is face to face on site. Additional support could come from providing cultural training opportunities to agencies, which would publicise the service; as would advisory work, a website and a newsletter.

3. Collect and use evidence

At the present time we have monitoring sheets, notes of visits, consultation reports and attendance data from schools. This information is placed on Impulse (a pupil database). The Traveller Education Officer records individual case notes and the team produce case studies. A vulnerable children’s list is checked weekly by the Advisory Teachers and Educational Welfare Officer.

Currently the administration team enter the information on Impulse, however, the Advisory Teachers are currently trying to arrange training so that they can also enter this information. The service has encouraged schools to do initial assessments for newly arrived travellers; this information is required on the single agency referral form (SARF). If the schools do not complete the assessment effectively then this can impact on the evaluation of our service’s support for the pupil.

Councillors attend the Gypsy Roma and Traveller Strategy Group and the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Delivery Group, which The traveller service attend. Impulse is being implemented across agencies currently, which will help the necessary flow of information, whilst ensuring it remains confidential.

4. Assess the impact

The users of the Traveller Support Service are children, young people, teachers, families and other agencies for example: Health/Social/Police/Housing/Probation/Connexions/Behaviour Support.

Travellers who are not ascribed need to be encouraged by schools to ascribe. Our users benefit by attending school and gaining skills, interacting with non travellers, interacting with the wider community and narrowing gaps in attainment.

The public in general need to be more informed if travellers are to be increasingly involved in the wider community.

Regarding access for traveller communities, the location of the sites can play a large part, especially for parents without transport. We encourage schools to accept their responsibilities for distance learning when travellers are away, and our service works towards schools’ taking ownership of the travellers’ learning. Much depends on the attitude of the traveller parents and their willingness to engage. The attitude of the travellers, school staff and the general public is key to the positive future interaction of the traveller community in society.

5. Ensure fairness

Traveller children are a very vulnerable group in society, under-achieving in school. travellers have a shorter life expectancy and are often on the periphery of society.

Traveller children can be away from an educational establishment for long periods of the year and therefore need to be tracked and given educational access via distance learning or teaching on fairground sites.

At Year 6 the benefits of secondary education need to be encouraged to ensure more traveller children go on to Year 7. Many traveller children go over to home education and leave education for good at the end of KS2.

TES will continue to strive to raise attainment and attendance and emphasise the importance of learning to the traveller community.

The service only works with travellers who are ascribed.

The impact of the Traveller Education Team may be negative or positive depending on the absorption of knowledge and information between TES and stakeholders. Direct positive contact with all parties involved with traveller children is essential.

The broad spectrum of travellers we work with have individual characteristics in each group, i.e. religion, gender roles, cultural educational values, social education, - depending on their traveller group and background. Once identified for a specific need, the TES team will sign post schools, pupils and families towards support services in order to access help.

We are aware that traveller learners in schools may present with other protected characteristics in addition to that of ethnicity, and where needed, our team will signpost schools, pupils and families towards the appropriate support services in order to access help.

6. Finalise your decision

• Communication between parents, administrative staff, and traveller support can be made difficult by team members working part time. It is therefore necessary that Customer Services at Wiltshire Council (County Hall) know who our team are, where we are based, and what we are responsible for with regard to the efficient transfer of information from and to incoming callers, and the resultant effective action
• Initial assessment of newly arrived travellers by school staff needs to be consistent. The service will review the procedures and give schools clear advice.
• The service needs to review how support in school is prioritised and for how long the support continues.
• Training to raise awareness of traveller culture should be a priority for the service in order to help combat prejudice.

Actions:

The service needs to inform Customer Services by providing an information contact sheet.

Joint Acting Head Traveller Education Service to find out about funding for business cards to leave with parents and agencies with traveller education contact information.

The website for traveller education to be updated.

The advisory teachers to review school support and initial assessments in school. The SARF will help with this initially. A covering sheet will be designed to track any SARF referral to the traveller service.

Training to be offered to schools on the school evaluation form sent out annually to schools.

7. Communicate what has happened

The service works regularly with families and schools. Communication about provision will be discussed with staff in school and families on site.

The Gypsy Roma And Traveller Strategy group will need to be informed If appropriate.

8. Review your decision

Changes in staffing mean that the work of the team needs to be prioritised differently. This includes the length of support schools will receive for individual children. This will also have an effect on the support given to visiting fairground children from other counties.

9. Name of person completing form

Joint Acting Head Traveller Education Service

Date completed

5 March 2012

Last updated: 13 March 2012