Advocacy Policy
Easy Read
Person who wrote this:
Anna Tradgett
Date it was written:
18th December 2008
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TITLE Advocacy Policy (Easy Read
version)
Page
Contents
What is a policy?
3
What is Advocacy?
3
What is an Advocate?
3
Why do we need a new Advocacy Policy
4
Who this policy is for
7
Types of Advocacy
7
What staff must do
10
How everyone will be told about this policy.
15
How we will check that everyone is doing
what this policy is telling them to do.
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Policy 10/07
This is Gloucestershire County Councils
Policy about advocacy.
What is a policy?
A policy is where we write down
how we are going to do
something.
This is a Policy about advocacy
so it says here what the Council
is going to do about Advocacy.
What is Advocacy?
Advocacy is support to help
people make decisions and help
people speak up. There are
different types of advocacy.
What is an Advocate?
An advocate is someone who
helps someone else to make
decisions and to speak up.
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Draft
Why do we need a new
Advocacy Policy
The government has made a
plan which is called ‘Putting
People First.’
This is going to be a big change
to care services.
It will mean that people who
use care services should have
more choice about the services
they use. People will have more
of a say and more control.
Some people will need advocacy
support to help them make
choices and to help them speak
out about services.
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This means that we will need
more advocacy services in
Gloucestershire.
The government has told
Gloucestershire that we need
more advocacy services and we
need to make sure that more
people use them if they would
like to.
There have also been some
changes to the law which give
some people new rights to
advocacy support.
The new laws are called The
Mental Capacity Act 2005 and
the Mental Health Act 2007.
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The laws explain that some
people who find it difficult to
make choices have the right to
support from an advocate.
Theses new laws mean that we
need more advocacy services so
there are enough advocates to
help the people who would like
support.
This policy says how the people
in Gloucestershire can have
help to speak up about things
that are important to them.
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This policy is for:
• All staff working in adult social
care services.
• Service users.
• The families and carers of
people who use social care
services.
Types of Advocacy
It is important that there is
support for everyone to be
able to speak up.
There are different types of
advocacy.
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Self-advocacy
Some people feel able to speak
up for themselves, but just
need a little bit of support and
advice about how to do it.
This is called Self Advocacy.
Citizen advocacy
Some people want to have help
from a person called an
advocate.
The advocate is someone who
can get to know the person and
then speak up for them if they
need them to.
This is called citizen advocacy.
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Issue based/ Crisis advocacy
Some people have one problem
that they want advocacy to
help with.
The advocacy support will help
the person until the problem
has stopped.
This is sometimes called ‘issue
based or crisis advocacy’.
Group advocacy
Sometimes it can help to talk
to a group and try to help each
other to speak up.
This is called group advocacy.
.
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Peer advocacy
Sometimes two people may be
in the same situation or have
something in common.
They can find it helps to talk
to each other and support each
other to speak up and make
decisions.
This is called Peer advocacy.
What staff must do
Staff must tell services users
and carers when they can have
advocacy to help them to speak
up.
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There are lots of different
times when you might want an
advocate to support you.
Here are some examples:
You can have advocacy when
you are having an assessment.
An assessment is when a Social
worker has a meeting with you
to finding out what your needs
are.
You can have advocacy when
you want to make a complaint
about care services.
You can have advocacy when
you go to a meeting called an
Adults at Risk conference.
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You can have advocacy when a
care service you are getting is
being stopped or when you are
told that you are not going to
get as much from a service as
you used to.
You can have advocacy if the
Mental Capacity Act and
Mental Health Act think you
may need help saying what you
want.
It is important to tell people
about advocacy services when
people are going through changes
like when somebody is moving
from children’s services to
adult’s services.
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Anybody can ask for an
advocate if they feel that they
need one. You can ask the social
care staff or contact an
advocacy service by yourselves.
Gloucestershire is working
with the advocacy services to
make sure that there is enough
advocacy support.
Sometimes people may need
someone with special skills to
help them. It might be
difficult to find anyone in
Gloucestershire who can help.
If this happens the Council can
help the person find someone
with the right skills from other
parts of the Country.
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Advocates must listen to the
person. They must not work
for any statutory service like
the County Council.
Lots of different people may
need an advocate.
People with families may need
help from an advocate.
Sometimes families and friends
do not say what service users
want them to.
Staff may speak up for service
users but some service users
may not want staff they know
to help them. They can have an
independent advocate to speak
up for them.
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Sometimes families and carers
need help to speak up.
If English is not a service
user’s first language they may
need someone to explain things
to them in their language and
an advocate as well.
How everyone will be told
about this policy.
Staff will be told about this
policy by:
• Emails to all staff.
• Staff training
• At service user and carer
workshops.
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Service users and carers will be
told about this policy by:
• Telling the Carer’s project and
other voluntary organisations
about it.
• The Advocacy information
leaflet called R1, which people
can look at on the
Gloucestershire County Council
website.
This is:
www.gloucestershire.gov.uk
If you have not got a computer,
you can ask for some
information from Council
Direct.
You can ring Council Direct
on:
01452 426868.
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How we will check that
everyone is doing what this
policy is telling them to do.
Gloucestershire will make sure
that people are told they can
have an advocate. They will
check that people can have
help from an advocacy service.
Gloucestershire staff will ask
the advocacy services how
many people they have helped.
We will look at the policy in one
year to see if it is working.
They will check that people are
doing what they should be to
help make advocacy better.
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