Traveller children ‘20 times more likely to go into care’

TRAVELLER children are 20 times more likely to end up in care, a new report on how the health service treats Travellers reveals.

The report, entitled Caring for Diversity and published by the Traveller Health Unit in the Eastern Region, underlines the need for social workers to be trained in Traveller culture and anti-racism.

In the eastern region, where a higher proportion of the Traveller population is concentrated, Traveller children are 12 times as likely to be taken into care.

The unit’s researcher also extracted a hitherto unpublished finding from the Department of Health and Children’s 2001 Springboard Report, that Traveller children are 20 times more likely to end up in care than settled children.

Director of Pavee Point Travellers Centre, Ronnie Fay, said it was the first time such an “alarming and significant” difference had emerged.

Ms Fay said the findings in these two relatively small studies underlined the need to examine the socio-economic and ethnic profile of all children in care.

“Social workers are not immune from racial prejudices that still exist in Irish society,” she said.

Some people still believed Travellers were bad parents and incapable of looking after their own children.

“Social workers need training so that ingrained prejudices are not acted out,” Ms Fay said. “We also need to train Travellers to be social workers.”

She said discrimination happened because the health service was largely designed by and for settled people and, often, did not take differences into account.

A study of the use of hospital facilities by the Traveller community found travellers were more likely to access hospital out-patient services through Accident and Emergency., whereas settled people were more likely to access the services through their GP. The study found 70% of Traveller patients accessed Out Patient services though A & E, compared to 53% of settled patients.