The point of advocacy

Some people have asked me why I keep banging on about advocacy.

Well, imagine that you need support, or care, or housing or a GP.

Now imagine that you are routinely disbelieved or given poorer services.
That you don’t get access to a GP.
Or that your physical health problem are ignored or put down to your mental health .

Or imagine that you are in a care home where you are being abused by the staff.
Or that in your care home you feel like you have no say at all in what happens or what you do.

Imagine finding out that someone put a Do Not Resuscitate notice are put on your file.
That they did this without your knowledge because they believed your life had no quality or value.
That they didn't ask you because you are old, or have a learning disability, or have a diagnosis of depression.


Then imagine that there was a thing called advocacy that could help you be listened to.

Imagine the difference that it would make to have someone standing alongside you.
Someone whose presence actively demonstrates that they think that you matter.
Someone showing that you are not alone, that you are part of our wider society.
Someone who treats you with respect and who expects others to do the same.

Someone who helps you to be heard.
Someone who is there to make it harder for others to ignore your voice, you rights.

Someone who makes it harder to ignore you.

That's the point of advocacy. 

I think that's worth banging on about. It needs to be kept on the agenda.

Other people ask why anyone should care that Action for Advocacy has closed?

Well, put yourself back in that position.
If advocacy was available, you’d want to know about it. 

You'd want an advocate who could be there for you.

Someone who knew what they were doing.

Someone who could do these important things as well as possible.

Advocacy is too important to get wrong. 

Advocates need to be trained, accountable, clear about their role and supported to deliver this..

Advocacy organisations need to be robust, independent and able to challenge poor practices.

That's what a4a was trying to achieve. 

We got part of the way, but it can't be left there.
We need to talk about what happens next.

I need your help.
I want you to get involved, have your say & help decide what happens.
If you're interested email martin@truevoicetrust.org and I'll get in touch soon.

As ever, comments welcome.

All Rock, No Blackpool?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Care and Support bill and the fact that it defines advocacy as a social care service for which there may be a need. Identifying needs is important.

Many years ago I did some research about needs evaluation in care planning. It turned out that there was a big difference between what was written in care plans and what was understood and known by ward staff. In general, staff were aware of and acted on a range of information that was rich, complex and arose from an ongoing relationship with the people on the unit. The care plan on the other hand was a bare essentials plan of must do actions. It often missed out some of the most important facts about a person’s needs and abilities because it was assumed that “everyone knows that”. The problem was that when the use of agency staff increased, not everybody did know that.  Lesson; sometimes we assume and imply too much when we really need to spell it out.

On that note, a recent meeting relating to the draft social care bill and white paper is worth exploring. The Department of Health’s interim report on Winterbourne View explicitly stated that the care white paper would explore the role of information, advice and advocacy. In that regard (and many others) it was surprising to see that so little actually appeared in the white paper about advocacy. However, it appears from the meeting at DH  that advocacy is implied within the need for information and advice within the bill. We can argue that it needs to be further developed, that the advocacy “bit” needs to be clarified as somewhat different to the information and advice roles, but we were told that advocacy hadn’t been entirely forgotten. The lessons from Winterbourne are too important for that.

In fact, looking through the principles of the white paper and the aim of the bill, it is hard to imagine the step change in services being delivered without advocacy. You could say that advocacy runs through the white paper like the words in a stick of rock, but I’m concerned that it doesn’t stand out clearly enough. If you haven't been told it's there, if you aren't plugged into the need for advocacy, then you won't notice the word advocacy.

And that means that at the moment with have a stick of rock with no “Blackpool” in it. If the need for advocacy isn’t explicitly spelled out it may get missed when guidance goes from national to local level, something which would reduce the chance of ensuring dignity, choice and control for all. We need the writing to be clearer. If you think so too, please get involved in the consultation on the Care and Support Bill website   – or sign up to Action for Advocacy’s 100 Words on Advocacy.