Non-Statutory Community Advocacy
Our Community Advocates are trained to support people with lots of different needs to have their voices heard.
Non-statutory Community Advocacy is not a statutory service. This means that in different areas, there are different criteria for being able to have support from an advocate.
Community Advocacy is often provided on a one-to-one basis and focused on a particular issue someone is facing or a specific need they have. Our Community Advocates can provide support on a range of issues and needs, such as accessing mental health services, communicating with professionals, care and support planning, and making a social care complaint.
Who might need this?
Anyone who needs help to have their voice heard but is not eligible for statutory advocacy might need Community Advocacy. People might find it difficult to make their voice heard for a variety of reasons, such as having a learning disability, having dementia, having mental ill-health, or being autistic.
A Community Advocate can help by:
- Helping people to understand their rights and how to exercise them.
- Supporting people to voice their views, wishes and feelings (for example, about their social care or mental health support needs).
- Attending meetings with people (for example, assessments, complaints meetings, or reviews).
- Helping people to find other services that might be able to support 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)
Not the right type of advocacy for you?
