Dale Farm bus 'helps Traveller relations' - Essex

From the Billericay Gazette

ENCOURAGING children and their parents to get involved in the community is just one of the ways in which a team of volunteers assist the travelling community in Crays Hill.

The Basildon SOS Bus visits Dale Farm once a week and helps residents feel more connected to the non-travelling community, by providing advice on the services which are available locally, such as the library and doctors. They are given support on anything from filling in forms and registering their children for school to advice on healthcare.

The bus, which is usually parked in the Festival Leisure Park in Basildon, also helps assist those who find themselves at need on evenings, such as those who have had too much to drink or find themselves feeling vulnerable.

When the bus visits the Traveller site on Oak Lane, children swarm for activities which are held in the upstairs of the double-decker bus. They are given the opportunity to be creative by reading books and taking part in activities like drawing.

John Bastin, community health and wellbeing manager at the SOS Bus, said: "The project is to show them they are not excluded.

"We're here to say: come and use our facilities they're here for you as well as everyone else."

Mr Bastin explained that the initiative is starting to work, for example, more children are attending school than before and a lot of Travellers are using a doctor rather than going straight to A & E, which they had been doing in the past.

During the Gazette's visit to the bus Traveller Daniel, 82, who lives at Dale Farm, came to have his blood pressure checked and explained that he uses the service on a regular basis.

Mr Bastin said: "We get on well with all of them – we have built a relationship.

"It's all about education, we sit with the kids and read and if we can get through to the kids we can get through to the parents."

Jill Nelson is from the Essex Countywide Traveller Unit and has been visiting Dale Farm for years.

She said: "We have a lot of interest and families approach the bus – they like to have the help.

"Quite a few families have gone over the years – we've been through really stressful times."

Phil Norton works on the Basildon SOS Bus and has recently launched the street pastor initiative in Billericay. He explained that Adult Community Learning had now started visiting the site, as well as the SOS Bus: "Now we have adult education we will have the chance to bring children on whilst their parents are next door."

Karen Brooker, a family support worker in Wickford's Children Centre, said: "We get a lot of people from here and we have activities like messy time and arts and crafts for babies from birth up to the age of five."

Richard Gray works at the Southend YMCA and said: "Being half term I wanted to get a feel for how the SOS bus is run here as there is another which operates in Southend."

Speaking of the youngsters on the bus he said: "It's good to hear lots of these children go to school."