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🧰 For staff and volunteers

For professionals

Practice checklists for working well with Roma families, plus a quick guide to status and benefits. More tools are in the Workers section of the RSN app.

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GP and health

  1. Register patients without asking for proof of address, ID or immigration status.
  2. Record ethnicity, nationality and language separately, and only as the patient describes themselves.
  3. Ask which language and dialect the patient wants and book a professional interpreter. Never use children, family or friends.
  4. Send reminders in a way people can use: phone, text in their language or in person, not by letter alone.
  5. Offer catch-up vaccinations and health checks at every contact, and explain how UK health services work.
  6. Know your local community, faith and migrant organisations and refer with consent.

Schools

  1. Record ethnicity and first language as the family describes them, with their consent.
  2. Review attendance, suspensions and exclusions by ethnic group and first language every term, and act on any gap.
  3. Use a home-school liaison worker or bilingual staff to build relationships with families in person.
  4. Book interpreters for meetings about attendance, special needs or exclusion.
  5. Check every eligible pupil for free school meals and pupil premium, and help families apply.
  6. Reflect pupils’ cultures, histories and languages in the curriculum and school life.

Children’s social care

  1. Offer early help before concerns escalate, and explain your role in plain language.
  2. Use a qualified interpreter in the family’s first language and dialect. Never rely on children or relatives.
  3. Separate poverty, housing and immigration problems from neglect in assessments, and tackle housing and income first.
  4. Seek cultural advice from a community-led organisation, with the family’s consent, and check assessments for stereotypes.
  5. Explore kinship carers, including family abroad, before other placements.
  6. Make sure parents know their rights, including free legal advice in care proceedings.

Housing and advice

  1. Check immigration status and right to reside before benefits advice; refer complex cases to a regulated immigration adviser.
  2. Help clients keep evidence of work, residence and income: payslips, contracts, tenancy agreements and bank statements.
  3. When enforcing against landlords, plan tenant advice and rehousing so families are not made homeless.
  4. Explain important letters by phone or in person, in the client’s language.
  5. Watch for signs of labour exploitation and report to the GLAA or the Modern Slavery Helpline (08000 121 700).
  6. Record clients’ communities, languages and outcomes so local need can be shown to funders.

Status and Universal Credit: quick guide

  • Settled status meets the right to reside test. They can claim Universal Credit on the same basis as other UK residents.
  • Pre-settled status and working (or worked recently): “worker” status may give a qualifying right to reside. Gather payslips, contracts, agency letters and bank statements.
  • Pre-settled status, not working: check other rights to reside with a welfare rights adviser. If destitute with children, contact the council about support under the Children Act 1989.
  • Application pending: people keep their rights while the Home Office decides and can show a Certificate of Application.
  • No status: refer urgently to a regulated immigration adviser. Late applications are still possible where there are reasonable grounds.

🌍 Roma communities

Roma-led and specialist organisations, helplines, and families’ rights with services.

Open Roma communities
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