This week’s leadership messages come from Kate O’Connell and Ellie Rogers

Hi, I’m Ellie and I am the CEO of Leeds GATE.

For 21 years we have worked to address the inequalities faced by Gypsies and Travellers across West Yorkshire. We work to address health, homes, education and inclusion for our communities. We are a life course organisation, and we work with people where they are at – offering services and community development opportunities to support and develop individuals and communities.

If you’ve ever worked with GATE, you may know that we call the people we work with our members. This represents how we see our communities - as participants and equal partners in our mission, not just recipients of a service or people in need of help. All around us we see talent, creativity, resilience, resourcefulness, humour and intelligence. We also see people caring, active and supportive communities and brilliant parents. If you’ve ever worked with Travellers you know that no child would go hungry (Traveller or not), as long as someone had something, it would be shared.

So celebrating our communities comes naturally to me – because I see all of this daily. But unfortunately, that’s not what the rest of society hears about. National newspapers publish a story about Gypsies and Traveller on average once every three days, and most of these stories are negative or sensational.

Due to these negative racial stereotypes, a lack of decent accommodation, generational exclusion and trauma, our members have some of the worst health outcomes of any group. They have an average life expectancy of just 50 and are seven times more likely to die by suicide. Sadly, these statistics are stubborn and we have big challenges as an organisation.

However, we are not without hope and we are not without tools we can use for change. I wanted to share some ideas that we (our members and staff) have come up with, which have helped us to centre why health inequalities are everyone’s business and how the perspectives of our Gypsy and Traveller communities can help everyone, if we remember to listen.

Commissioning from the margins – at Leeds GATE we came up with this idea that starting from the perspectives of marginalised people helps to build human-centred services that work for everyone. Imagine a dart board with commissioning in the middle and Gypsies and Travellers on the outside. If we start from the middle we build something that works for commissioners. If we start from the outside we build something from the perspectives of people experiencing barriers and we have the opportunity to remove them.

This doesn’t only work for Gypsies and Travellers, it works for everyone else on the way back into the middle. Think about language – Gypsies and Travellers have the lowest educational attainment of any ethnic group with over 50% having no qualifications. They are more likely to have no or low literacy. However, one in 7 UK adults read at the literacy age of nine and 43% don’t understand written health information. So thinking about how we use written language in our services benefits a much wider group.

Roads, Bridges and Tunnels – this is our model about how people access services. The road describes the service pathway – how a service might intend you to access (for example, choose and book). The bridge describes the add ons and work arounds that the system makes to help those who just can’t navigate that road (for example, our advocacy service would support someone to book their appointment). The tunnel describes the ways in which people themselves find workarounds (for example, sharing community knowledge of treatments or an address).

Our members described the world they want to see as a multi-lane motorway with slip roads on and off. A world where you can go at your own pace – a system that is holistic, patient and driven by the person not the process. Gypsy and Traveller people are experts in health inclusion because they've had to be.

I hope you can see that we have much to be grateful for and much to celebrate about the wonderful contributions our communities make. If you want to know more about our work and our communities then please attend our next training session on the Lives of Gypsies and Travellers in West Yorkshire, it is free to attend.

All the best,
Ellie

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New podcast promotes programme for people with incurable cancer

A new podcast series covering topics and issues of interest to both people affected by cancer and the professionals who support them has been launched by West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance.

The launch episode features Richard, who has stage four pancreatic cancer. Richard talks about the benefits of Thinking Ahead – an online wellbeing course for people living with incurable cancer, who may or may not be receiving treatment, and their families. It provides them with help and support to look after themselves, find out about the support services available and plan ahead.

Richard shares the conversation with Helen Jones, Project Manager for Thinking Ahead, and Sue Ormesher, Communications and Engagement Officer for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance.

Many of the topic sessions are led by health and wellbeing professionals, and include managing uncertainty, keeping active, estates planning, benefits and travel, mindfulness, faith and spirituality, diet and appetite, managing fatigue and advance care planning.

Listen to the podcast via the Cancer Alliance website.

For more information about Thinking Ahead, contact Helen by email, helen.jones225@nhs.net