Advocacy services

What is advocacy?

Advocacy is about taking action to help people:

• Express their views and wishes
• Secure their rights
• Have their interests represented
• Access information and services
• Explore choices and options

Advocacy can help people become more aware of their own rights, to exercise those rights and be involved in and influence decisions that are being made about their future. Crucially advocacy can empower people to speak up for themselves.

Independent or impartial?

People feel more able to speak to someone who does not have any control over their care or access to services. This makes it important that advocates are independent of those services.

Advocates are not impartial. They are there to express their client’s wishes as if they were their own. An advocate’s first duty is to support their client. It is important those advocates stay, and are seen to be, independent of those services.

When do people use advocacy?

Advocacy can be useful when someone finds it difficult to make them self heard. Formal meetings and procedures can often make people feel that they need support to speak up effectively.

Independent advocacy makes sure:

• Your interests or the interests of your group are heard directly or are represented by an advocate
• That you have equal access to your full entitlement  of rights and services
• You to identify your interests and wishes and that they are represented with determination and persistence
• You are able to speak for yourself if you want to

What is the advocates role?

Advocates help to ensure that people have control over their own lives. They are involved in looking at choices, enabling you to know your rights and helping you defend those rights and getting your voice heard.

Independent advocacy ensures:

• Your voice is heard
• That your advocate is accountable to you
• That your advocate aims is to understand, respond to and, represent your interests with commitment, as if they were their own
• They are not there to decide what is in your best interests
• They side with you and pass on all relevant information to you

Advocacy service directory

Plymouth Advocacy Network is a partnership group that consists of different advocacy providers that represent different groups of people who feel they are being ignored, overlooked or treated badly.

An advocacy service directory has been developed and is available to download. Most services work with a clearly defined client group and for this reason the directory has been organised into sections giving more information about advocacy and client groups.

Download a copy of the advocacy service directory below to learn more about the different groups and organisations available across Plymouth and the services they provide.

Advocacy service directory [3.46MB]

Links to related information

• Department of Health - Mental Capacity Act 2005

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides a statutory framework to empower and protect vulnerable people who are not able to make their own decisions. It makes it clear who can take decisions, in which situations, and how they should go about this. It enables people to plan ahead for a time when they may lose capacity.

• Department of Health - Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS)

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) provide protection for people who are in hospitals or care homes and are deprived of their liberty for the purpose of providing treatment or care, but lack capacity to consent to these arrangements; these could include people with dementia and those with severe learning disability.

We also produce a range of leaflets and publications which you may find useful.