Inequalities in Mental Health Services for Romani and Travellers - Time for Social Work to Step up?

Unwin, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1985-1959 and Hulmes, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6508-4771 (2025) Inequalities in Mental Health Services for Romani and Travellers - Time for Social Work to Step up? Critical and Radical Social Work, Early (View). pp. 1-17. ISSN 2049-8675

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Abstract

Romani and Traveller communities in the UK and Ireland are in the midst of a mental health crisis. These communities have suffered epistemic injustices over the centuries and social work has been part of this structural oppression. Historical and ongoing trauma is ever present, there are disproportionate numbers of their children in care in England and suicide rates are high, yet social workers have very little knowledge of Romani and Traveller communities and are slow to recognise professional complicity in perpetuating inequality.
The research below used mixed methods to elicit views from Romani and Travellers and associated staff about experiences of mental health services and offers social workers an example of authentic co-produced research.
Conclusions are that social work has colluded in the perpetuation of epistemic injustice that has excluded Romani and Traveller people from being able to access mental health services (hermeneutic injustice) and from being listened to or valued (testimonial injustice). Future social work education and practice must be trauma-informed and address this unhappy legacy of epistemic injustices.

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