The suicide and mental health taboo in Gypsy Roma Traveller communities
How we looked beyond figureheads and leaders to uncover the mental health taboo in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities
“Because of what we’ve been through, the racism and prejudice against us, we’ve got to be strong. You’re not allowed to show weakness. That’s what’s drummed into us.”
In 2024, HWLincs was commissioned to produce two reports for the Care Quality Commission’s People’s Profile project.
This project focused on seldom-heard groups and HWLincs was chosen to speak to people who sell sex and the GRT communities.
HWLincs has strong, valuable links with the Lincolnshire Traveller Initiative (LTI), having helped over the past decade to create women’s health hubs in the community through Healthwatch Lincolnshire and more.
For our CQC work, LTI helped to reach members of the GRT community. Their input helped us to identify key issues and elevated local voices nationally.
Influx
With more interest in seldom heard communities, there’s an influx of organisations asking these groups for feedback and data. We’re hearing that they feel they get little back in terms of change, support or impact, so organisations are experiencing a retreat and a closing off.
Bear this in mind with engagement – make it worth their while. Follow up and feed back to them what impact their input has had.
First findings
Initial results to the survey showed some clear issues.
• Access to GP services
Especially for people with no fixed address.
42% never had access to a dentist.
49% sometimes had access to a GP.
Online access is resisted: barriers include it being too complicated, lack of internet connection, worries about safety of information and poor computer literacy.
• Negative attitudes and judgement from health and social care professionals
72% felt they were or had been treated differently when they told a nurse or GP their background. Some now never mention it to avoid this.
It’s felt there’s a general lack of understanding of the community, its needs and culture.
• Hesitancy to engage through a mistrust of authority and institutions
Alongside this: 8% had heard of CQC and when asked if they’d share thoughts on healthcare with CQC, responses were mixed.
• Mental health is a taboo subject
As the project drew to its end, we felt there was more to be learned about mental health, but its taboo nature was clear.
The data we were getting indicated that everything on this front was fine.
No problems.
Gatekeepers
So we went beyond the regular organisations and community leaders whose survey collection could potentially – and wholly inadvertently – gatekeep responses that include sensitive or taboo material.
Tanya
On this journey we found Tanya.
Tanya is from the Traveller community and attempted suicide on Christmas Day, 2021.
She felt she had nowhere to turn in her community.
When she left hospital, she didn’t want others to feel that way, so she set up the Not Ashamed Gypsy Traveler Mental Health Facebook group.
At the time of the report, the group had more than 500 members.
In conversation, Tanya told us:
“Because of what we’ve been through, the racism and prejudice against us, we’ve got to be strong. You’re not allowed to show weakness. That’s what’s drummed into us.”
Tanya said this view held by Elders continues today.
“They get embarrassed because it makes them feel as if they’re weak. They’ve got no one to turn to, that’s why so many [take their own lives]”.
Tanya has known many people who have died by suicide in her community.
What she told about asking for help is key, and chimes with the previous findings of prejudice and mistrust.
“It’s hard for us lot to turn to our own, and it’s hard for us to have to turn to somebody else that isn’t our own.”
Tanya was working hard to break the stigma associated with mental health within her community and encourages people to offer support to others.
She told us a phrase that she’d often hear following a suicide within the community: ‘May they have their best bed in Heaven.’
Her message to her group is:
“Instead of saying, “May they have their best bed in Heaven,’ say, ‘I’m here for you, you can talk to me. Don’t feel ashamed. Don’t feel alone. We won’t judge’. That’s how things are going to change because we get enough grief just for being Gypsy Roma Traveller without all this on top as well.”
Unlocking the taboo
Our conversations with Tanya felt like the Rosetta Stone for the mental health portion of the report, which otherwise said there is not a problem.
It laid out:
- The taboo nature of the subject
- The harm that’s done by it being taboo
- The cultural context around it
and given the hundreds of people within her group,
- The real need for support.
In writing this, we checked back to see the latest figures and the group has gone.
Hundreds of people are no longer being supported in this way.
Post-report, we’re adding a recommendation of funded and managed support groups to stop these one-man-band setups from collapsing.
Tanya had ill mental health. We regularly checked in with her during the project to offer support and signposting. It’s clear that expecting her to carry to weight of everyone else’s emotions was too much.
But by speaking to us, she unlocked a key concern that has allowed us to document this, share the findings and take the first steps to changing it.
Only by digging deeper did we get the evidence we needed to make this case.
So when engaging with seldom heard communities, use your standard engagement methods and contacts, but look outside the usual channels to make sure that every voice has the chance to be heard.
Find the stories that can lead to change.
You can read the full report here.
Other recommendations include:
- Building trust with the communities
This is essential for any co-design to be effective or considered
- Cultural sensitivity training and education for professionals
be effective or considered - Offer a range of engagement methods
- Review or refresh access to GPs for people without a fixed address
Consider mobile/flexible access to services for those who are travelling
- Work with the community to tackle taboos: primarily mental health and bowel cancer screening among men.