Challenge
Enfield Council were struggling to connect with a lesser heard part of the community, even to the point of understanding how many people were in their borough who identified as Gypsy, Roma or Traveller (along with many iterations of those cultures). With the ONS Census 2021 on the horizon, this was the perfect opportunity to build a picture of services that needed delivering and to who.
These communities feel misunderstood, are very untrusting of the council and many local authority services and struggle to read, write and in some cases understand English.
A new board dedicated to representing these communities was initiated with their main priorities centred around Education, Health, Housing and Culture. And the Census 2021 results were going to help back their support initiatives with figures and data.
Solution
Branue helped structure a robust comms plan and stakeholder map to assist with collating tasks, initiatives and every department involved in making this board launch successfully. This included many external parties and charities dedicated to building relationships with the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
We generated a plan which included the most effective channels of communication according to sources within the community. Normally the most effective way of conveying a message with trust is in person (especially for these communities). But with a pandemic thrown into the mix, this was off of the cards. And since audio and visual communication was preferable, we created two videos featuring the well established and trusted GRT Board leader. We also ensured we involved community members using the most common languages in the borough (besides English).
Working with the council’s libraries department, we were able to help people get online more and build capability within the community. This also meant that in time for completing the new online focussed Census in 2021, we would be able to more effectively encourage participation.
