ACERT 2023 Conference promises to be an exciting event
Live and online. Don’t miss it!
Friday, 3 February 2023
10:00 – 16:00
John Lennon Art and Design Building (JLADB Space),
Duckinfield Street,
Liverpool, L3 5RD
Chair for the day Richard O’Neill
- Welcome by Baroness Whitaker (ACERT Patron) and Patricia Joliffe of Liverpool John Moores University
- The development of the GRTSB Pledge – Sherrie Smith, Ruby Smith, Emma Nuttall
- Implementing the pledge in schools – Paula Strachan, Jonathan Green
- The importance of story and poetry – Oein DeBhairduin, Richard O’Neill, Mitch Miller, Raine Geoghegan
- Improving mental health and wellbeing – Sheldon Chadwick, Candace Thomas, Sally Carr, Violet Cannon Smith
- Community involvement – Rosa-Maria Cisneros, Lisa Smith, Oein DeBhairduin.
Our conference, seeks to address these issues from the perspectives of schools and communities. We will hear how the GRTSB Pledge is being implemented in Schools and Higher Education and the role of the communities in providing culturally appropriate resources for curriculum. We’ll discuss how we can extend its reach and impact, looking at the role of activists and governments.
Recognising how discrimination and exclusion can damage mental health, we’ll hear about work among Showmen and other Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities to recognise the issues and promote well-being.
Published story-tellers will share their work and we’ll preview new resources about Roma holocaust survivors. We’ll hear how Roma and Irish dancers have joined other communities in Coventry to share their stories with the wider community.
Finally, we’ll look at the failure of recent governments to recognise the barriers and challenges faced by families accessing their educational entitlement, and try to develop a framework for a campaign across all education sectors, in the run-up to the 2024 election, to reverse the pattern of exclusion, underachievement and discrimination.
Our rescheduled conference will focus on ways to recognise and respect the cultures and identities of all Romani and other Traveller communities. We’ll hear from the originators of the GRTSB Pledge, head teachers of schools implementing it and students who recognised the need for it.