Organisation Profile

Working in partnership with professional advocacy organisations brings more benefits than just helping service users to speak up. The POhWER experience shows how public sector organisations can improve services with the support of advocacy partners.

Advocacy is client-centred support designed to empower people who have difficulty speaking up for themselves. POhWER is one of the largest advocacy providers in the UK and provides advocacy to a very wide range of service users from all communities in any setting, including highly specialised settings. POhWER’s clients include people from different cultures, people who may have disabilities or sensory impairments, are unwell, or may not communicate verbally – including people who may lack mental capacity. Most of our clients are concerned about interactions with the public sector.

Service users are frustrated if they are not heard, and satisfactory outcomes are then unlikely to be achieved. Problems arise when services do not meet service user need well.

POhWER’s high quality advocacy and its commitment to improving the service user experience is being used in partnership with public and independent sector care providers to improve services. Advocacy has a high value to service users but its value needs also to be measured in:

improvement to public sector delivery, by reducing problems for service providers working with complex client needs
achievement of better outcomes
counting the value of clear service user communication, engagement and feedback

POhWER can provide:

independent support and advice about user engagement and the service user experience
training for front-of-house and care staff
well structured reports and service user feedback to service providers.

Examples where health and social care providers have worked in partnership with POhWER to help improve services include,

Ensuring that service users have access to advocates when making a complaint:
feedback from public sector organisations says that this approach leads to better focused complaints that are easier to respond to, are resolved more quickly and help clarify the changes that might help others too.

Problem solving:
service users sometimes present with a range of overlapping issues that involve many services, where no one service alone can resolve the problems. This can result in multiple complaints that are never satisfactorily resolved. Advocates can provide the general support needed for a services user to resolve issues across a number of fronts.

Providing independent safeguarding support:
for example, we have helped make it easier for clients and staff to tackle financial abuse.

Supporting wider engagement:
examples include empowering service users to voice issues of common concern, helping engagement with consultation exercises and in small and larger scale service changes.

POhWER is a major provider of the three statutory advocacy services:

and works in six regions. It also provides self-advocacy, peer advocacy and a range of specialist and generic advocacy. It is through POhWER’s commissioned advocacy services that successful partnership work has grown.

POhWER is a not-for-profit company and is one of the top 2,000 charities. It was established in 1996 by a group of people who successfully supported each other in addressing injustice and social exclusion. Its quality is externally accredited and training provided to national standards.

POhWER is a company limited by guarantee, incorporated in England and Wales as POhWER
Company No. 3323040 Registered Charity No. 1061543
Registered Office: Hertlands House, Primett Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 3EE

Commissioners can contact POhWER at marketing@pohwer.net

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