Category: ACERT

Online Cultural Competency Training

Drawing on our experience of delivering Gypsy and Traveller Cultural Awareness training to over 700 organisations and Local Authorities in the United Kingdom, we have developed an online learning programme which targets the key themes and questions arising amongst service providers about Gypsies and Travellers. The course is ideal for members of the statutory, voluntary or private sector wishing to engage or work more effectively with Gypsies and Travellers.

The course contains four modules:

  1. Gypsy and Traveller History and Culture;
  2. Challenges faced by Gypsies and Travellers;
  3. Positive Strategy – Accessing Services; and
  4. Positive Strategy – Participation.

Each module contains generalisable principles for better practice and learning opportunities about Gypsy and Traveller history, culture and more. The course can be completed in around 60 – 90 minutes and on completion, learners will receive a certificate to demonstrate their new knowledge and understanding of the Gypsy and Traveller culture and community.

Learning outcomes:

  • Increased knowledge of culture, traditions and history of the Gypsy and Traveller communities;
  • A better understanding of diversity within the Gypsy and Traveller communities;
  • Identified obstacles to access and attitudinal issues or barriers in education, health, employment, accommodation, safeguarding and other public services, that inhibit the delivery of quality provision to Gypsy and Traveller communities;
  • Improved understanding of how to engage effectively with the Gypsy and Traveller communities and what they can do to address exclusion and ensure inclusion in the delivery of services.

The training package allows it’s users to access learning at a time and place that suits them and offers cost savings for organisations and local authorities.

View an online demo

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A DEMO

The legacy of Plowden

ACERT Mini-Conference and AGM 2017
23rd September 2017

The cover of the Plowden report

FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE
173-7 Euston Road
London NW1 2BJ

The Plowden Report, Children and their Primary Schools was published in 1967, 50 years ago and recommended, among other things, Education Priority Areas and Child Centred Education. The report included an appendix Gypsies and education and advocated targeted interventions and joined-up thinking to make sure that marginal groups were included.

157. The case of the gypsies illustrates another aspect of the policies required in educational priority areas. Improved education alone cannot solve the problems of these children. Simultaneous action is needed by the authorities responsible for employment, industrial training, housing and planning.

174(vi). Authorities and the Department of Education and Science should ensure that the needs of other educationally deprived groups, such as gypsies, which will not be picked out by the general criteria laid down [for Education Priority Areas], are not overlooked.

Bridget Plowden became the first President of ACERT when it was founded in 1973 and remained committed to promoting the education of Romanies and other Travellers throughout her life. The late 60s and early seventies was a period of Gypsy activism, which culminated in the Caravan Sites Act of 1968 and a growing recognition of the rights of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers.

ACERT plans to use the occasion of our 2017 Mini-conference and AGM to reflect on the progress that has been made over the past 50 years, at the same time as recognising how much more needs to be done. 

Please put the date in your diary, and watch this space for updates on speakers.