Addressing Racial Family Injustice Through Improved Data Practices : The Urgent Need to Improve the Visibility of Romani Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Children in England’s Child Welfare System

Allen, Dan and Grey, Gesienne and Kostka, Joanna (2026) Addressing Racial Family Injustice Through Improved Data Practices : The Urgent Need to Improve the Visibility of Romani Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Children in England’s Child Welfare System. Practice: Social Work in Action. pp. 1-8. ISSN 0950-3153

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Abstract

Romani (British) Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller children remain significantly overrepresented in England’s child welfare system. This perspective paper extends the work of Allen and Hamnett (Citation2022) by analysing publicly available data from the Department for Education (DfE) between 2010 and 2024 to assess disproportionality in the number of children looked after by the state. Using disparity ratios, our analysis reveals that both ‘Gypsy/Roma’ and ‘Traveller of Irish Heritage’ children continue to enter care at more than twice the rate of children from all other ethnic groups. We argue that this overrepresentation reflects not only differential patterns of need but also deeper systemic racism, cultural misunderstanding, and the conflation of distinct ethnic categories in data reporting. The inconsistent classification of ethnicity by the DfE and other government departments obscures the lived experiences of these communities and undermines efforts to develop proportionate and equitable child welfare responses. Our findings point to an urgent need for reform in how ethnicity data is collected and used in child welfare.