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Advocacy
- 3. Introduction The act or process of supporting a cause or proposal; the act or process of advocating something…
- 4. Advocacy definitions • Advocacy is taking action to help people say what they want, secure their rights, represent their interests and obtain the services they need. • “Advocates and advocacy schemes work in partnership with the people they support and take their side. • “Advocacy promotes social inclusion, equality and social justice.” Advocacy Charter, Action for Advocacy (2002) 4
- 5. What is advocacy? Befriending Counselling Choices Mediation Legal support Rights Having a voice Support Advice Dependency Empowerment Making decisions Impartial Representation
- 6. Why Advocacy is Necessary? Rights – concerned with law & social structures Participation – concerned with move to inclusion, citizenship, & involvement in recovery (e.g. Individualized funding) Power – concerned with shifting power to families & individuals & distributing valued resources more equitably
- 7. Purpose of Advocacy Empowering Speaking up SafeguardingEnabling Supporting
- 8. History of advocacy •1950s – scandals in long stay hospitals •1960s – increasing awareness of rights and the way people are treated who need services •1966 – Wolfensburger established the first Citizen Advocacy project in America 8
- 9. History of advocacy cont… • 1979 – first Citizen Advocacy project in London • 1983 and 1984 – developments in advocacy for mental health patients, people with learning difficulties, and children • 1980s – till date – legislative and policy changes based on the rights of individuals to have a voice, choice and representation
- 10. Types of Advocacy Here we will refer to five types of advocacy: •Individual Advocacy •Citizen Advocacy •Systems Advocacy •Parent Advocacy •Self Advocacy
- 11. Individual Advocacy Here the advocate concentrates their efforts on one or two people only. There are two common forms of individual advocacy •Informal Advocacy •Formal advocacy
- 12. Informal Advocacy • When people like parents, friends, family members or agencies speak out and advocate for vulnerable people this is termed informal advocacy
- 14. Formal advocacy •Formal advocacy more frequently involves organizations that pay their staff to advocate for someone or for a group of individuals.
- 16. Citizen Advocacy • A Citizen advocacy is a partnership between an individual who is vulnerable and not in a good position to exercise or defend their rights as a citizen, and a member of the community who is independent of those providing direct services. • A person may be vulnerable because of disability, old age or mental health difficulties.
- 17. Citizen Advocacy cont… •A Citizen Advocate is someone who volunteers their time and is recruited by a paid, trained advocate coordinator. •The coordinators role is to create and support relationships between an advocate and partner (vulnerable person). .
- 18. Citizen Advocacy is NOT a: • Buddy Program • Volunteer Program • Complaints Service • Paid Advocacy Service • Legal Service Citizen Advocates are involved because they have made a voluntary commitment to be a loyal supporter of a person with intellectual disability, to be a friend, who can, when necessary, protect and safeguard their interests.
- 19. System Advocacy •This form of advocacy is primarily concerned with influencing and changing the system (legislation, policy and practices) in ways that will benefit people with a disability as a group within society.
- 20. Systems Advocacy cont,,, This can include influencing: • the creation of new laws or changes to current laws • the priorities and plans of government and non-government agencies • the policies and procedures that relate to services or systems • the way in which government and non- government agencies provide services.
- 21. Parent Advocacy •Parent advocacy is concerned with advocating on issues that affect the person with a disability and their family. •The focus is on the needs of the person with a disability, not the parents or family.
- 22. Parent Advocacy cont…. •However, some parent advocacy focuses on the needs of parents first. •Whilst parents have substantial needs for support and resources, when we talk about parent advocacy we mean advocacy by parent groups for people with a disability.
- 23. Self Advocacy •Self-advocacy is the ability to speak-up for yourself and the things that are important to you. •Self-advocacy means you are able to ask for what you need and want and tell people about your thoughts and feelings.
- 24. Self Advocacy cont…. •self-advocacy means you know your rights and responsibilities, you speak-up for your rights, and you are able to make choices and decisions that affect your life.
Editor's Notes
- “Advocacy is taking action to help people say what they want, secure their rights, represent their interests and obtain the services they need. Advocates and advocacy schemes work in partnership with the people they support and take their side. Advocacy promotes social inclusion, equality and social justice.” Advocacy Charter, Action for Advocacy (2002) This definition is the one that is widely used by advocacy services. It is linked to the advocacy Charter, Code of Practice for Advocates and the Quality Performance Mark for advocacy.
- Exercise In pairs then feeding back to the group. The purpose of this exercise is to get people thinking immediately about what advocacy is and if they have to explain to a client then it is important that they can do this in a short and clear way. This exercise will be repeated towards the end of this module when they have had more understanding of the role of an advocate and what they do and why. Discuss what key words you might use to describe advocacy. In one minute explain to your partner what you understand by the term advocacy as though you were explaining it to a client. How easy was this exercise? What, if any, difficulties did you have? Feed back to the group some of the key words you used to describe advocacy. It may be difficult to accurately identify the starting point of the advocacy movement as advocacy has arguably been around in one form or another since mankind started to organise itself into societies or communities. People have always fought to be heard, fought against injustice, persecution and forms of discrimination. In modern day however, organised forms of advocacy began to take shape in the latter half of the 20th century. Following the Second World War, many people started to question different aspects of Western culture, including psychiatry and how services were provided to vulnerable people. This led to a number of patients, relatives, friends and service providers questioning whether it was right to lock people with mental health needs or learning disabilities away in large asylums for long periods of time. From the 1950s onwards, numerous scandals concerning long stay hospitals placed pressure on the government who considered their closure. At this point a number of charities lobbied for change including more legal protection for patients. In the late 1950s and 1960s, an increasing awareness of rights and the way society treated people who needed services, led to the development of citizen advocacy. In 1966 Wolfensberger introduced the first citizen advocacy scheme in America. The first citizen advocacy organisation in the UK was established in 1979 in London. At a similar time in America, a number of parents of children with learning difficulties got together to discuss the idea to have somebody special who could look after the rights of their children, as if they were their own. More information on this in the addition information resource.