Generic one to one advocacy

For eight years POhWER has provided a generic one to one advocacy service available to adults in Hertfordshire.

Most advocacy projects in the UK mirror social care provision in that they cater for specific client groups such as mental health, learning disabilities and elderly.
A generic advocacy service reaches all people regardless of their client status or the kind of services they use.

Generic advocacy has the following benefits:

A diverse case working skill base.
A service that can be used by people who are not already in services or have received a diagnosis.
A service that focuses upon core advocacy skills that can be transferred between client groups.
A service that can work readily with people who have complex circumstances and use multiple services.
A service which can support a client who has multiple and disconnected issues.

Types of Issue that arise in Generic One to One Advocacy:

The more predominant categories of issues worked on, shown as category headings with examples.
Care
Changing social worker, contacting social worker, day care issues, issues with key workers, whole life review meetings, accessing social worker for assessment and care package, dealing with contract services e.g. homecare

Medical – meetings/information/treatment
Clinical care issues in hospital, accessing clinical staff – community and hospitals, accessing NHS referral services e.g. counselling, accessing non-clinical staff e.g. PALS/execs, medication, Mental Health Act meetings, any medical meetings
Benefits/debts
Referrals to specialist agencies, accompanying clients e.g. to CAB or other meetings, gathering information e.g. on debt, appeals and supporting clients working with the Money Advice Unit.
Housing
Resettlement – from hospital/community home, moving, accessing housing, lodgers and tenants, homelessness and repossession, accessing environmental health/housing specialists/solicitors.
Child protection
Supporting clients at consultations with solicitors and at child protection conferences. Looking over reports and correspondence with clients, identifying issues and action required.

Legal
Accessing legal advice, supporting clients to access solicitors. Supporting clients with appeals.
Relationships
Supporting clients with matrimonial, access and neighbour issues.
Leisure
Accessing services/facilities, arranging activities e.g. holidays

What Advocates can do for their clients

A one to one Advocate will work solely with a client and at the client’s direction.
In this role the Advocate can perform the following:

Attend meetings with the client.
Carry out correspondence and telephone calls with the client and third parties.
Support a client to access formal procedures such as statutory complaints systems.
Contact any professional body.

How advocacy works: the client encounter

All one to one client work follows the advocacy issue circle.

image: The Advocacy Circle diagram

The advocacy issue circle is a process that follows four stages. Each stage defines a moment in the overall process of providing advocacy, and requires different tasks.

Stage 1: The client

The circle begins and ends with the client, and the encounters that take place between the Advocate and the client.
It is the client who at the initial stage gives consent for the work to take place.

Stage 2: The Issue

The Advocate talks through the client’s concerns and through listening and facilitation, helps the client to identify an overall issue, or set of parallel issues.
The Advocate offers options in terms of what the client is entitled to do.
The Advocate will establish how the client would like the Advocate to work alongside them.

Stage 3: Action

The actions identified in stage two are being followed through.
The Advocate updates the client and checks to see if actions are being delivered to time, or responses from third parties are taking place.

Stage 4: Review

This stage is reached once an action or set of actions have been completed and the Advocate needs to gain further instruction from the client about where the issue now stands.
At this stage one of two things happens, either the client and Advocate agree to close the issue, as it has been completed, or the circle is followed through again.

Case Studies

To see how the Advocacy Issue Circle works in practice, have a look at our Case Studies

Parallel Issues

In the case of parallel issues, one issue may close quite easily, while another may require exhausting a list of available options.

The lifetime of the issue is entirely relative to the issue’s complexity and the client’s approach in instructing the Advocate. Ideally the Advocate should be empowering the client to self advocate and have the tools and confidence to work without the support of the Advocate.
Often this is not the case, and the client may want extensive advocacy input.
This creates a wide spectrum of casework, which extends from the swift resolution work that can be carried out in 30 minutes, to ongoing work that can take months or years to bring to an end.

Referrals

To make a referral to our service please complete the
third party referral form

Feedback

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Contact Us

Our North Hertfordshire Office covers Stevenage and North Hertfordshire, Royston, Buntingford and Bishop's Stortford, Welwyn and Hatfield, South East Hertfordshire (includes Cheshunt, Ware, Hoddesdon).

Contact the North Office

Our South Hertfordshire Office covers St Albans and Harpenden, Watford and Three Rivers, Hertsmere (includes Potters Bar, Borehamwood, Radlett, Shenley), Dacorum (includes Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Berkhamsted, Kings Langley).
Contact the South Office

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Case studies relating to the application of the advocacy issue cycle

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