Lessons for social workers from the Harehills riot
It’s shocking video footage. Widely shared on news channels and social media, a crying boy wearing a football kit and socks clings to a post as he is dragged from his home by a burly police officer.
He was one of four children forcefully removed from a Roma family in Harehills, a deprived suburb of Leeds, following child protection concerns.
The intervention sparked a riot, with vehicles set on fire and missiles hurled at officers. Some 20 arrests were made.
While the full facts are still being established, a family court hearing a few days later shed some light on matters. It seems social workers visited to take the children into care after being tipped off they were about to be taken abroad in breach of a care order.
At the time, the children were living with other family members having been removed from their parents in April after a seven-month baby suffered a fractured skull.
According to court documents, a sibling of the baby admitted she had dropped the baby by accident and not told her parents.
The father claims safeguarding concerns were only raised after they took the baby to hospital.
After last month’s highly charged removal, the children were placed in emergency foster care but did not settle. They were said to be “extremely upset” with the carers who were not “culturally matched” to them.
As a result, a family court judge ruled the children should be returned to the care of extended family members within the community.
For the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association the case has raised many issues and concerns.
Jackie Bolton, co-founder of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association, said: “Roma families are going to be even more scared than they were before about social care involvement and even less likely to feel comfortable and willing to work with social workers.
“We have been trying to work with the Roma community around encouraging Roma parents to work with social workers and build their confidence and this will have decimated all that.
“I wouldn’t want to be critical of the social workers, but I have seen the film where the police are taking the children and it looks like they are being arrested.”
Allison Hulmes, co-founder of the association and a social work academic at Swansea University, also has concerns about the “optics” of what unfolded at Harehills.
She said: “You will not speak to a Roma, British Gypsy or Irish Traveller who says they have no fear of social workers.
“They all fear them, because they fear their children are going to be taken into care. This has done a huge amount of damage.”
The association has written to Leeds council offering use of its new Roma model for supervision based on a restorative justice way of working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
“Maybe if they had that tool to make their decisions things would have been different,” said Allison.
“Social workers need guidance to help them and support their decision-making to avoid situations like this.
“Some social workers express anxiety if they have a referral to a Roma, Gypsy or Traveller family. They speed things up when we know social work is about slowing things down, pausing and reflecting.”
A joint statement by charities supporting Roma communities and human rights groups issued in wake of the Harehills rioting expressed concern at the “forceful manner” in which the children were removed.
It points to research showing a lack of “knowledge and cultural competence among children’s services regarding Roma families.”
Among the research highlighted is a 2022 paper Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Children in Child Welfare Services in England which evidences these groups are disproportionately referred to children’s social care and over-represented in state care.
Jackie said: “Our concern is that they are over-represented because most social workers aren’t familiar with our community, and the risk of over-representation is based on perception rather than fact.
“People think of Travellers based on what they see in the media and highly populist programmes like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
“Social workers can go to work with a family with all these images and stereotypes in their mind, which influences their risk assessments.”
Jackie also questions whether an assessment had been made of the impact of the Harehills intervention.
“There have been riots in that area before. There are reports about what triggers rioting in deprived areas where there are racial inequalities, and I would have thought the police would have done a risk assessment and recognised that was a potential outcome.
“The danger is when a community feels oppressed and unfairly treated, things bubble up. Events like this have triggered violence before. It’s not the one incident, it will be how the police and other agencies are with the community. It will be a systemic issue in these areas, linked to dissatisfaction and inequality.”
Allison stresses the importance of social workers foregrounding social work ethics when working with oppressed and disadvantaged communities.
“Our perspective in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association is social workers have to have understanding of people’s histories and the vulnerabilities they face.
“They need to be prioritising rights-based anti-racist social work. Our international definition is all about practising rights-based social work.”
She added insecure immigration status results in some Roma families struggling to access rights, leading to further oppression and marginalisation.
“We know Roma families in the UK, particularly since Brexit, face massive issues.
“There are so many families that don’t have settled status. Without that they can’t access the full range of benefits. There are problems around employment. There are language barriers, structural barriers in not having access to the right advice and support to navigate difficult processes to get settled status.”
One of the most troubling aspects of the Harehills case is the underlying racism towards Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities it exposed.
The joint statement issued by charities and human rights organisation underlined this, stating: “We are concerned by the virulent racism that has proliferated social media since these events unfolded.
“Roma communities in the UK are frequently subject to racist stereotyping and stigma and this tragic event is being manipulated to stoke hate and fuel division.”
According to Allison, there is much work still to be done: “Trevor Phillips, when he was chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers is the last ‘respectable’ form of racism.
“There was research recently that showed the two most hated communities in the UK are Gypsies and Muslims. So many people don’t accept that Roma, Gypsy Travellers are legally protected under the Equalities Act.
“We have to name it because it gets watered down as discrimination or prejudice: it is racism.”
The association will be piloting the Roma supervision model in the autumn.
A further family court hearing will meet in August to decide on how the children in the Harehills case should best be cared for.
At the very least, the recent media spotlight may have put some focus on the plight of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities in the UK.
Resources
Supporting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities – a BASW resource
A guide to child protection for Roma parents
Aversive racism and child protection practice with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and families