Last week SPEAR hosted a co-production event which brought together people from the Roma rough sleeping community and those working with them to better understand their needs and explore ways to improve our services in Kingston.

The homeless Roma community in Kingston is small, but has experienced significant discrimination and there has been a lack of a coordinated approach to address their immigration status, housing, employment and training, and health and wellbeing needs. This has resulted in a lack of trust and an unwillingness to engage.

Jude Everett, SPEAR’s Kingston Outreach Team Leader, and her team suggested the co-production event in partnership with St Mungo’s Pan-London Roma Rough Sleeping team. The evening led by our Assistant Director of Operations, Gary Clements, and interpreted by Edward Munteanu from St Mungo’s, was an opportunity to listen to and acknowledge the concerns and frustrations of local Roma community members.

The event also provided an opportunity to introduce Mioara Matei, SPEAR’s new Romanian-speaking Roma Outreach Worker. Mioara has joined our Kingston Outreach team and we hope that her addition to the team will transform our relationship with the local Roma community.

Key issues that were raised during the evening included:

• Many of the Roma community do not speak English and there was a significant appetite for the offer of tailored ESOL classes which SPEAR is working with RAHCC (Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College) to develop.
• Without full settled status, there are no easy answers to getting people accommodation. Svetlana Lopotenco, a dedicated Roma Immigration worker from The Passage, was at the event providing advice on how to apply for settled status.
• Employment training was also a hot topic of discussion with one of the Roma community saying “I don’t want benefits, I just want to work”. SPEAR’s Outreach team promised to investigate organisations in the Kingston area who will take on employment training.

Wrapping up the evening, Gary was keen to promote this event as a way to reset SPEAR’s relationship with the local homeless Roma community, saying:

“We know we can do more. We will work more closely with other organisations, like St Mungo’s, to get the Kingston Roma community the right advice and connect them with local services. We want to support them and influence change to end rough sleeping.”

Amanda Petrovic, Service Manager for St Mungo’s Roma Rough Sleeping Team said:

“We could see that the clients already felt at ease with the Roma Outreach Worker recently employed by SPEAR. While we understand that building trust will take time, we are confident that the efforts we saw on Thursday night will make it possible. The clients will need some time to adjust to the fact that someone is taking the time to listen to their voices, which is a new experience for them.”

This event was the first in a quarterly series of events and we are looking forward to carrying on working with the local Roma community to continue to address their needs.

We’d like to thank the people from the Kingston Roma rough sleeping community for giving their time and honest feedback, Kingston Council for their assistance, and Amanda Petrovic, Service Manager for St Mungo’s Pan London Roma Rough Sleeping team who was instrumental in her team attending this event.