Ms Concepta de Brun:

Although we adhere to the principle that staff should be trained in cultural appropriateness, the approach taken is inconsistent because it depends on where one is and on how close one's working relationship with one's Traveller health unit is. If one has a strong Traveller health unit, more of one's staff will be trained. Our new health plan includes a commitment to improve our cultural awareness training. We rely heavily on the peer support workers in the Traveller primary healthcare projects to provide culturally appropriate training. All staff who attend and sit with Traveller health units have participated in cultural awareness training. In addition, we culture-proof and literacy-proof anything we co-design or deliver alongside our cultural awareness training. We do not develop any materials without working in partnership with the Traveller community. All small local projects that are achieving or are doing very well are brought to the regional network and the learning is disseminated among the peer support workers in that network. Models of good practice then come to the national Traveller health advisory forums. One of the projects we are working on at the moment is the national mental health promotion training programme, which is a "train the trainer" programme. Twenty trainers have been trained as part of the pilot and we are ready to try to roll it out. The project was co-designed by members of the Traveller community and mental health staff. I will set out where we are falling down with our work. We probably need a much more robust framework to ensure culturally appropriate training is given to people beyond primary care and not just in the primary care and social inclusion services where the Travellers are located. I accept we need to do more with other care directorates.