Non Statutory Community Advocacy

 

Who might need this: anyone who needs help to have their voice heard about their social care or mental health support.

 

Our community advocates are trained to support people with lots of different needs to have their voices heard.

 

It is not a statutory service. This means that in different areas, there will be different criteria for being able to have support from an advocate.

 

How community advocates can help

 

• Helping people to understand their rights and how to exercise them
• Supporting people to voice their views, wishes and feelings about their social care or mental health support needs
• Attending meetings with people (for example assessments, complaints meetings, reviews)
• Making a social care complaint
• Helping people to find other services that might be able to help them (signposting)
• If people can’t tell their advocate what they want, it’s not a problem. Our advocates will find different ways of working to help establish people’s views and wishes as far as possible so that their rights can be upheld. We call this ‘non-instructed’ advocacy

 

Who can make a referral?

 

• The person who needs support
• A friend, family member or carer (with the person’s permission)
• The local authority (with the person’s permission)
• The NHS (with the person’s permission)
• Other organisations or charities ((with the person’s permission)