The Multimedia Toolkit for Roma Parents project was developed and delivered by Advicenow. The project was developed in response to concerns about the number of Roma families subject to child protection investigations and the number of Roma children being taken into care by local authorities in England. The project aimed to improve access to justice for Roma parents going through child protection proceedings.
The project was funded by the Tudor Trust and took place over a one year period, from November 2017 to December 2018. The main evaluation activities took place 12 to 18 months after the project was completed and this evaluation report was produced in July 2020.
Advicenow worked with three Roma charities to develop and deliver this project:
- Roma Support Group – a London-based charity supporting Roma communities throughout the UK.
- Clifton Learning Partnership - a charity working for community cohesion in Rotherham whose Family Support Workers help Roma and other families in Rotherham.
- Roma Community Care – an advocacy group providing a voice for Derby’s Roma community.
The project delivered the following activities:
Consultation with key stakeholders about Roma families’ knowledge and experiences of Children’s Services departments, and to identify the resources needed to increase Roma community knowledge of child protection and to increase social workers’ awareness of Roma culture.
Key stakeholders were Roma families, Roma NGOs, social work ac demics, Gypsy/Roma/Traveller experts, local authority Children’s Services departments, and legal professionals. Four consultation workshops took place; three with Roma families and Roma NGOs, and one with social work and legal professionals.
Development of a multimedia toolkit explaining the legal framework of child protection in England.
The toolkit consists of an information guide and a film, narrated in the Roma language, illustrating key elements of the legal framework and the skills needed to fully comply with child protection requirements. These resources were widely distributed to Roma NGOs, other charities, and to local authority Children’s Services departments.
Development of a one day legal capability training session which aimed to:
- Help Roma champions and non- Roma advocates working with Roma families involved with Children’s Services to gain a better understanding of the child protection process in England.
- Support Roma champions to disseminate relevant information to Roma families so that they feel more informed and empowered to navigate this process. Three legal capability training sessions were delivered, in London, Derby and Rotherham. These were attended by workers from the three Roma charities, other family support workers, and child protection professionals.
Project outcomes
The project aimed to achieve the following outcomes:
- Improved legal capability and understanding about the child protection process amongst Roma community members.
- Empowerment of Roma parents through increased knowledge about their rights and responsibilities and improved skills and confidence needed to assert their rights.
- Improved engagement between Roma parents and public services, including Children’s Services.
- Increased cultural competence amongst social workers and legal professionals.
- Reduced number of child protection cases and other positive outcomes such as prevention of family breakdown.
Evaluation
This was a small scale project with a very limited budget for evaluation. To maximise the evaluation activity, Advicenow worked with an independent evaluation specialist (Liz Mackie from Shared Enterprise) to design an evaluation plan and data collection tools. Evaluation data collection was undertaken by Advicenow and the Roma champions. The evaluation data was collated and analysed by Liz Mackie, who authored this report.
