West Limerick Resources - "Committed to the Community"

Promotion of participation in Census 2011

Census 2011

The team of West Limerick Primary Healthcare Project (PHCP) worked with Pavee Point and the Central Statistics Office (CSO) to promote participation in the 2011 Census amongst the Traveller community in Rathkeale.

Staff distributed information flyers and 50 DVDs produced by Pavee Point and spoke to individuals explaining the importance of the Census for future planning of services and facilities and how it is completely confidential. The Community Health Workers highlighted the questions on ethnicity and health status on the Census form. They also explained about the CSO enumerators' role - including that they can help fill out the forms if needs be. Since the staff had met the main enumerator working in Rathkeale town, they were also able to give his name and say they found him good to deal with.

Additionally, CSO staff met with the Community Health Workers who explained about the layout of the town and some general information about their experiences calling to homes in Rathkeale. According to the local CSO superviser the whole initiative was "very helpful" and was a "huge contribution". She indicated that due to a number of factors, including linking with the PHCP, there was a higher percentage of returns than in the previous Census (although there was a smaller overall population this time round). It was worth working with the Community Health Workers and "it would be valuable to link in with the project in the future" in the same informal manner - which resulted in what was described as an "enriching experience" for the CSO staff. The supervisor described how the enumerators work to a very tight schedule and may at times have limited knowledge about the Traveller community, so meeting the PHCP staff helped alleviate some concerns.

This was a relatively straightforward project to roll-out. Time was the main challenge - the Community Health Workers could not start too early so they called to homes in the week leading up to Census night, thus reinforcing the mass media messages about the Census. However, the staff learnt it would have been more useful to have met the CSO staff earlier than was done (two weeks before Census night) and to have used other promotional methods that have been tried and tested since this initiative, (which was basically the first community-based action undertaken by the PHCP staff).

Updated March 2012