Advocacy
About advocacy
What is advocacy?
Advocacy means to speak up for someone. Most of us at sometime in our lives
speak up for others or hope that someone will speak up for us when we need
support.
There are some groups of people who may need more help than others. This is
particularly the case for people with learning disabilities because they are at
risk of being ignored. Sometimes we have lots of problems understanding what
they are trying to tell us if they do not use words.
Advocacy is about making things change because people’s voices are heard and
listened to.
It’s about making sure that people can make their own choices in life and
have the chance to be as independent as they want to be.
With independent advocacy it is about another person (an advocate) making
sure that a person with a learning disability is not being ignored because they
need some help to make sure that they are heard. Advocacy is about putting a
person back in control of their own life.
Download
accessible version (PDF format)
What an advocate does
· An advocate works to make things happen and change.
· An advocate helps people to make choices and take more control of their own life.
· An advocate works for everyone to have equal rights.
· An advocate tries to make sure that people with a learning disability are not left out and lonely. They should have the same chances as everybody else to be included in their community.
· An advocate helps people to say what they want and makes sure that the voice
is listened to and answered.
Download
accessible version (PDF format)
What an advocate does not do
· An advocate is not a referee in a dispute or argument.
· An advocate does not take the control away from the person they are advocating for by persuading them into his/her way of thinking.
· An advocate does not take over the role of a Social worker or a nurse or a
care worker either,
or make up for gaps in services that should be provided. There is no right kind
of advocacy and there are many different ways it can be offered.
People are very different and may need different types of advocacy at different times in their lives. We need to make sure that there is choice that suits the differences of the people who want what advocacy has to offer. In that way they will gain the most from it.
What is common to all types of advocacy is that the person who it is for (in this instance the person with a learning disability) is always at the centre of the advocacy process. It is all about what that person wants, and finding the best way of getting that across to the people who need to know.
Advocacy can be like tools in a tool box, the different types can be used
together or separately depending on the job that needs to be done.
More information
For more information on advocacy you may wish to check the links below:
BILD publications on advocacy
One day events
Bespoke training
Links
Page ref: '04advocacy_about' Owned by:
enquiries@bild.org.uk
Last updated:
29/08/2007