Young Travellers
STATUS Supporting Young Travellers Advance through Universal Services
Youth Work Ireland Member Youth Services around the country play an important role in making links to young Travellers. Our services work in partnership with other groups on policy priorities identified by young Travellers to support youth service development towards improved practice and in understanding the barriers young Travellers face in accessing youth work services.
The STATUS Toolkit was developed to support those working with young Travellers. The pack enables youth workers to facilitate greater engagement with young travellers and, also outlines research to assist youth workers and volunteers understand the needs of one of the most marginalised groups of young people in Ireland. The STATUS toolkit involves youth organisations reviewing their current practice and agreeing simple strategic actions which will ensure better outcomes for Travellers in their personal lives and in society at large. The toolkit provides a step by step guide facilitating and creating organisational best practice in the engagement, participation and retention of Traveller youth in Mainstream youth services. The STATUS Toolkit was developed with the support of Leargas and Erasmus+ and led by Youth Work Ireland in partnership with Involve, Youth Action Northern Ireland, An Munia Tober.
The purpose of the STATUS Toolkit is to provide a Quality Assurance Framework whereby youth work organisations can engage in a process of self-evaluation and agree a Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) to support their youth work practice to be more inclusive of members of the Traveller community.
An ongoing All-Island working and implementation group has been established to support the use of the STATUS toolkit in youth serving organisations on this Island. A schedule of activities is in development and further updates will be made available on this page.
