Health Programme

Clare Traveller CDC

Health Programme

As well as focusing on mental and physical health, the Health Programme will also address those factors impacting health status and wellbeing of Travellers.

GraphicLogo

Mental Health

  • Understanding the Causes

  • Building Peer Supports

  • Facilitating Service Access

Physical Health

  • Lifestyle Awareness with Travellers

  • Cultural Awareness with Service Providers

  • Facilitating Service Access

Social Determinants

  • Health/Accommodation Links

  • Discrimination/Mental Health Links

  • Progression/Health and Wellbeing Links

Activities Allies and Partners
Mental Health • Understanding Causes
• Peer Supports
• Service Access
• Research on Suicide
• Training support workers
• Drop-in Facility
• Regional THU
• Counselling Services
• National Traveller MHN
• Clare PHCP
Physical Health • Lifestyle Awareness
• Cultural Awareness
• Service Access
• Community outreach
• Service Provider Training
• Access to Screening
• Hospitals, GPs
• Regional THU
• HSE
• Clare PHCP
Social Determinants • Health / Accommodation
• Discrimination
• Progression / Health
• Researching the links
• Influencing Policy
• Public awareness
• LTACC
• Clare LDC
• Clare PHCP
• Local and national media
CTCDP-Strategic-Plan-Final-Version-May-2023-pdf (3)
CTCDP-LOGOsmall

To ensure that actions on health and wellbeing are community-centred and community-driven, much of the initial efforts will be on capacity building of Travellers (staff and volunteers) who will act as information providers and peer support workers. Clare PHCP (Primary Health Care Project) will be central to all these actions 5. The PHCP is peer led – facilitated by members from the Travelling Community.

The programme will aim to increase awareness (among health and other service providers) around both:

  • The causes of poor mental and physical health among Travellers and the need to address these causes.

  • The need for an informed approach and ethnic recognition in delivering services to Travellers. A targeted approach will be taken to involving different sections of the community in building the capacity for peer support and mentoring. This will involve a range of activities designed around the interests and motivation of people (the strong ties many Traveller men have with horses will be a starting point for some activities, for example, while the involvement of young Travellers in sporting activities will also be a focus).

Outcomes of Mental and Physical Health Programme

Clare Traveller CDP is aiming, over the three-year period of this strategic plan, to have achieved:
• A greater understanding around factors contributing to good and to poor health within the Traveller community of Clare.
• A strong and recognised voice for Travellers, impacting positively in relation to health risks and to the risk of suicide.
• The capacity for self-organisation and Traveller participation increased in a range of fields, all of which will impact positively on mental and physical health.
• More timely and more effective access to health and mental health support services for those in need of them, and especially for those at risk of suicide and self-harm.
• Heightened and more widespread awareness around causal relationships between lifestyle and health, living conditions and health, good mental health and good physical health.
• Increased availability of Traveller friendly and Traveller managed spaces to facilitate activities that are health positive (women’s groups, men’s sports associations, social and mainstream media outlets).
• Higher rates of participation in national screening programmes.
• Strengthened links, and more informed from a cultural point of view, with GPs.
• A greater emphasis among mainstream service provision on the social determinants of health (demonstrated, for example, in a greater emphasis on accommodation determinants within the Traveller Health Unit and a greater emphasis on health outcomes within the Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee).
• Stronger working alliances with other Traveller projects to agree on and implement effective and appropriate models of healthcare, health promotion and health monitoring.
• A strengthened emphasis on recording of health outcomes (and an enhanced understanding of the reasons for positive outcomes). We will engage in ongoing research, and dissemination of research results, with this in mind.

All of these are achievable goals, and legitimate in their own right. However, there is little or no possibility of meaningful change or improvement with regard to the mental and physical health challenges faced by Travellers without a serious shift in priorities at national level. All of our planned activities over the coming years will have the aim of raising consciousness around the crisis of suicide in our community.

Strategic Plan 2023

Download our Strategic Plan for more information

CLARE TRAVELLER CDP VISION STATEMENT

“Our aim is to improve living conditions, opportunities and achievement of human rights for Travellers in Clare. This will be pursued through establishing and strengthening local alliances and, most importantly, through building effective Traveller leadership and a strong Traveller voice”

Vision

Scroll to Top