EECERA Conference 2025 – Guest Blog # 21: Let us in, hear our voices

One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA.

Let us in, hear our voices; the barriers the Traveller population face when accessing and participating in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme.

By Emma Ferris, PhD student in Southeast Technological University (SETU)

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

My name is Emma Ferris, and I am a second year PhD student in Southeast Technological University (SETU), in the South-East of Ireland. My background is in Social Care and Public Health, and I live in Carlow, Ireland, with my husband Ruairi, two beautiful children, Rowa and Ivy, and our crazy dog, Finn. I am currently researching an engaged research project with the Traveller community in titled; Let us in, hear our voices; the barriers the Traveller population face when accessing and participating in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme.

The Irish Traveller population are a small group in Irish society, making up less than 1% of the population. A 2017 Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report tells us that they are a group that face extreme disadvantage when it comes to employment, housing, and health and they face exceptionally strong levels of prejudice in Irish society. The ECCE programme is the Irish, free preschool programme that runs across two years. Barriers are real or perceived obstacles that prevent or interfere with access to or participation in services. There is evidence to suggest that barriers can lead to unequal access and participation in key childhood services and that this unequal access can lead to social exclusion and negative outcomes for children. We are told that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to face barriers (Equal Start, 2024).

The barriers to accessing and participating in ECCE programmes don’t necessarily exist in the ECCE programmes themselves but more likely in the systems that surround the Traveller population. These invisible, subtle systems hold many problems in place, and have many detrimental effects on the Traveller community, yet they are never spoken about by the dominant population and are not considered when Traveller policies are developed. Kania, Kramer, & Senge (2018) capture this idea in the following story

A fish is swimming along one day when another fish comes up and says “Hey, how’s the water?” The first fish stares back blankly at the second fish and then says, “What’s water?” (Kania, et. al. 2018, p.2).

Kania et. al. (2018) advises that ‘the first step in seeing the water is to illuminate the systemic forces at play’ (p.2). For the Traveller population, these systemic forces include anti-Traveller, discriminatory, government policies and embedded social narratives that make it very difficult for people from the Traveller community to access good health and educational outcomes, appropriate housing, and income. There are many power imbalances within these systems that keep these systemic forces in place. Many complex problems arise from these systemic forces such as educational disparities, an overrepresentation of Travellers in the criminal justice systems, disproportionate health outcomes, disproportionately high rates of overcrowding and homelessness and high rates of poverty. The systemic forces are the ‘water’ that keep these complex problems in place, perpetrated by an oppressive, dominant population that causes ongoing physical and psychological stressors on the Traveller community.

Subica and Link (2023) define cultural trauma as

An overwhelming and often ongoing physical or psychological assault or stressor perpetuated by an oppressive dominant group on the culture of a group of people sharing a specific shared identity / affiliation (e.g. race / ethnicity, nationality, religion), (Evans Campbell,2008; Kohn and Reddy, 2006; Stamm et al., 2004; as cited in Subica and Link, 2023, p.2).

Many of the social issues that plague the Traveller population are coping mechanisms used because of the historic and current trauma that the population face, the trauma of living in a society governed by these systemic forces, the cultural trauma perpetrated on them. Every decision that the Traveller population make, including sending their children to preschool is impacted by the ‘waters’ surrounding them. This can be a very hard concept to grasp when you cannot see what is in the ‘water’. I want to illuminate the pathways that these systemic forces and complex issues take to affect the decision to access or participate in preschool.

My EECERA presentation will focus on how this engaged research project has been structured to co-create this research with the Traveller population and what is the importance of researching with minority populations. I would love people to attend and to hear different opinions and perspectives on what I have to say. I wish everyone a safe trip to Bratislava, and I am excited to see you all there!

Emma Ferris will present work referred to in this blog in Symposium Set B17 (Tuesday 26th of August). (Schedule liable to change; please refer to final programme for details).