Ethnic needs in mental health for members of the Traveller community

Mental health services should have ethnic or cultural identifiers for members of the Traveller community to help deal with problems including high suicide rates, according to an expert committee which looked at the issue.

In an article published in the latest edition of the Irish Association of Social Workers’ Journal, a principal social worker at Dublin South Central Adult Mental Health Services outlines how the group decided, on balance, that identifying the level of Traveller interaction across mental health services would mean “routine monitoring of trends would be facilitated and appropriate care provided”.

Frank Browne was a member of the Traveller Mental Health Sub-Committee of the National Traveller Monitoring and Advisory Committee, alongside representatives of Traveller support groups, the HSE, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health.