News
PEN member Dee Cooper wins Friends Families and Travellers’ Inspiring Project Award 2024!
Share this page
The award recognises her inspiring contribution to women’s health in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities
Huge congratulations to PEN member Dee Cooper of Surrey Gypsy Traveller Communities Forum for winning this year’s Friends, Families and Travellers Inspiring Project Award!
The Friends Families and Travellers Awards celebrate members of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities who have inspired special contributions to GRT communities and wider society.
Inspiring: Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Women’s Health Group
Dee Cooper played an instrumental role in founding the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Women’s Health Group.
The Group is entirely led by GRT women, for GRT women. It is highly innovative in its approach in joining up GRT women with a network of NHS nurses who have specialist GRT training.
The nurses have gained invaluable insight into GRT cultures and have developed an understanding of the barriers that GRT people face in accessing and receiving healthcare, including the discrimination they are subjected to.
The GRT Women’s Health Group centres GRT women in their own healthcare and so avoids a ‘tick-box exercise’ approach to their engagement with the NHS nurses.
The nurses’ attendance at the group has provided them with invaluable first-hand experience of working within the community.
How GRT Women’s Voices are Being Heard
The Group is also playing a pivotal role in enabling women in GRT communities to tackle the social isolation they may experience. It empowers the women to identify their health needs and to discuss their experiences of using health services with the nurses and others from the community.
Dee has played a key role in giving GRT people a voice within the Public Engagement Network, including in her engagement with other PEN members and the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Community Engagement Officer for the Public Engagement Network, Paige Lyons, attends the group sessions on a regular basis to receive GRT women’s feedback on health and social care services.
This means that GRT voices are being heard by CQC and that, particularly following the Friends Families and Travellers’ Award, that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Women’s Health Group is leading the way in demonstrating best practice for others to emulate in future.
It’s been nearly 28 years since I started working in our communities, because my heart couldn’t cope with seeing and feeling all of the injustices that we have all experienced at some point in our lives… Thank you to everyone who nominated me. Thank you to our GRT nurses, because without them we wouldn’t be able to run the women’s group. This award isn’t just mine, it’s for every woman who showed up, told their stories, shared their heart, helped another woman, educated us and made that difference Dee Cooper (full text on X)
‘Nothing about us, without us’: how GRT-trained nurses are centring Gypsy, Roma and Traveller women in healthcare
Surrey Gypsy Traveller Communities Forum tells us how trust and insight are essential in improving healthcare for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) women.
Read more
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller histories and health
Michelle Gavin and Billie Dolling from Friends, Families and Travellers discuss how the Public Engagement Network and Gypsy, Roma Traveller Month 2022 have helped amplify the voices of the communities they support
Read more