Gypsy-Traveller communities are doubly disadvantaged in accessing mental health support. Mental health is a culturally taboo topic within Gypsy-Traveller communities, limiting opportunities to seek help, and experiences of unfair treatment and discrimination make communities mistrustful of mainstream health services.
This project has sought to build connections with Gypsy and Traveller communities to ensure their voices are part of the conversation around how best to meet mental health needs. Initial engagement work supported by TEWV and the University of York was undertaken in York and County Durham, which provided some insight into community perspectives about mental health need and the available support and explored community priorities for action to help inform research and service development. This has led to two jointly produced, NIHR funded research projects focused on Gypsy and Traveller mental health. The first aims to work with communities to explore the nature and extent of mental health needs and consider how best these needs could be met. The second explores effective, community-led approaches to suicide prevention and how both preventative and intervention-focused work can be undertaken in effective and empowering ways with these communities.