Advocacy

Types of advocacy

All people are very different from each other. Their needs for support are different, and may change during their life. A variety of advocacy has developed to recognise these differences:

        Self advocacy
        Peer advocacy
        Paid independent or professional advocacy
        Citizen advocacy

All advocacy types are of equal value. What advocacy is used, and when, should depend on what is best suited to the person who seeks it. A single person may ask for different types of advocacy support at different times in their life.

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.

Self advocacy

This is speaking up for yourself. It is what most of us do most of the time. It is the best kind of advocacy where people feel able and willing to do so. This should always be worked towards.

Many people with learning disabilities are good at speaking up for themselves. Sometimes they find it hard to get others to accept this or to listen to them.

Self advocacy groups are a good way of encouraging this. They are run by people with learning disabilities who sometimes have supporters. Self advocacy groups are often groups of people who use services or have the same interests locally. They work together to make sure they have a say in how those services are run. They are a very good way for people to support each other and they can help to build confidence so that people feel more able to speak up for themselves.

Peer advocacy

This is when the advocate and the advocacy partner share similar experiences or environments. This happens for example between children who may live together in a children’s home, those experiencing mental ill health and those with a learning disability. It sometimes means that people who have experienced the same things feel they have a better understanding and can be more supportive.

Peer advocacy happened in the past between people with learning disabilities when they were separated from others and lived in isolated hospitals. They often only had each other for company and were away from others in the community. There was no one else to speak up for them other than their fellow residents. As people with learning disabilities began to learn more about the rights and obligations of citizenship, more of them are speaking up for each other.

This is often like citizen advocacy with both partners having a learning disability and is mostly of an informal nature.

Paid independent or professional advocacy

This can often be called crisis, issues based or case advocacy. It usually means that it is advocacy with clear outcomes and targets and the advocacy input finishes when the outcomes have been met. This advocacy can be undertaken by volunteers or paid members of local independent advocacy scheme staff or by individual paid consultant advocates.

Key points about this sort of advocacy are:

· It is temporary, and does not involve a long term commitment

· It has clear targets

· It can bring in advocates with special knowledge or experience around the issues that need to be addressed

· Advocates mostly have a number of people they support at any one time

Some service providers such as social services or NHS Care Trusts may pay advocacy schemes to provide this type of advocacy on a contract basis. They may also pay independent consultants to provide advocacy when certain situations arise.

Citizen advocacy

This is a partnership between two people. To try to make things clear, one is usually called the advocacy partner, and one the citizen advocate. An advocacy partner is someone at risk of having choices, wishes and decisions ignored, and who needs help in making them known and making sure they are responded to. A citizen advocate is a person who volunteers to speak up for and support an advocacy partner and is not paid to do so.

Key points about citizen advocacy are:

·    The citizen advocate is unpaid and independent of service providers and families and is a member of the local community

·    The advocacy partnership is one to one and the advocate’s loyalty is to the advocacy partner alone

·    The advocacy relationship is based on trust and confidentiality

·    The citizen advocate identifies the partner’s choices and decisions, but does not make or influence them

·    The partnership is long term and not time limited and lasts for as long as both partners want it to

·    An advocacy scheme “matches” the advocate and partner

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

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Last updated: 03/04/2008