what is advocacy?
Advocacy is about sharing the views wishes and feelings of a young person and supporting them to communicate with professionals.
There are two main types of advocacy. The first is issue-based advocacy, which is where young people feel that the professionals in their lives aren’t championing their rights or aren’t listening to their point of view and they want support to have that concern listened to and understood. The issue could be related to housing, communications with their social worker, understanding their care order and their rights, and concerns with being NEET. Or it could be supporting a young person who wants to extend their afterschool curfew, for example.
The second type of advocacy is specifically providing support for young people in meetings. For example, with initial child protection conferences, review child protection conferences, my voice matters meetings, LAC reviews, family group conferences, any kind of meeting about their care whether they’re in a residential placement or secure unit.
asphaleia’s advocacy service do home visits and visit five residential homes in East Sussex on a monthly basis. They also visit a secure unit weekly. For young people placed out of county, we can still provide advocacy support. Most likely it will be over Teams. If that’s a barrier, our team will try to find other ways to meet with the young person.
Advocacy provides short-term support. The referral will be for a meeting or issue and once that’s done, we close it down. There is no case work completed with a young person. The young person must have consented to be involved in the service, it is never forced upon them. We encourage young people to be active participants in their own advocacy with the aim for them to self- advocate in the future. A young person can utilise a advocate as many times as they wish.
Young people can request a male or female advocate. Advocates are allocated based on availability, but young people do have the option to change or turn down the advocate they are assigned, if they would like to.
who can access an advocacy service?
There are different branches of advocacy and providers, most offer advocacy for children and there is also adult advocacy in some locations. Advocacy is understood to be for looked after children or children in care proceedings.
The service that asphaleia currently delivers for East Sussex County Council (ESCC) provides advocacy for any young person who is either looked after by ESCC or is in the process of a child protection plan, or any care leaver up to the age of 21, or any care leaver up to the age of 25 if they have SEN or disabilities. We do support any young person who would like to make a complaint about a service provided by ESCC, this includes school, and mental health services, amongst others.
why is advocacy important?
It’s important to give young people the opportunity to speak to someone independent, someone who doesn’t work for the same team as their social worker (SW) or independent reviewing officer (IRO). They can feel supported by somebody who is just there for their wellbeing or passing on their views. Advocates are not decision makers they’re there to amplify the voice of the child or young person, rather than be clouded by various procedures and priorities.
It’s important because for a lot of meetings young people aren’t invited due to the sensitive nature of what’s being discussed. An advocate being present gives them the opportunity to be present in the meeting in terms of their views without having to be there themselves. An advocate can support a young person to go to a meeting if they struggle with the way professional meetings are held. Young people will feedback that lots of professional jargon is used, or professionals bypass what the young person is saying, so an advocate can help aid their understanding and ensure decisions are being made with the young person’s views in mind.
what would a typical advocacy session look like?
The advocate would meet the child or young person in their home or at school or out in the community, if they prefer. They always bring an ice breaker activity, such as a game or drawing activity. Our advocates are encouraged to take fidget toys as well.
When the advocate is providing support for issues or complaints, they will ask broad questions to steer the conversation and give the young person the opportunity to speak about things that might be important. By using this set of questions which covers how they’re feeling, what’s going well/not well, school and home life, contact with family, relationships with friends, safety, what questions they may have, and whether they want to share anything specifically, their views are developed over the period of an hour and reflect what the young person feels and what they would like to happen.
Advocates prioritise sharing the young person’s actual words. They reflect what the young person has said in a way that might make more sense but make very few changes. Feedback they often get from professionals is that what they shared sounded like the young person talking and they could imagine them saying that. If young people aren’t in the meeting, they feel confident it’s their words being said on their behalf. Even if they swear, it will be included, and young people feel positive about this level of accuracy.
where can a child find an advocacy service local to them?
Through the government website for their local authority. asphaleia delivers East Sussex advocacy service, which young people could find via Google, or they can ask their social worker, or foster carers. Young people can self-refer and can get back in contact if they have used an advocacy service before.
are there any misunderstandings or myths that you often have to explain?
It’s important for young people to understand that we aren’t decision makers, we can’t guarantee or instigate changes in their situation. But we can support, and we can facilitate conversations, we can be in the young person’s corner to help them express an outcome that they would like.
Sometimes professionals expect advocates to coordinate the different services involved in a young person’s care, however, advocates are not there to coordinate the professionals, just there to speak/act on behalf of the young person.
what if the young person isn’t happy about their advocate?
If a young person wants to complain about their advocate, they can first raise a complaint to the advocate directly to try and resolve it. If this isn’t satisfactory, they can complain to the advocacy manager. If they are unhappy with the response, they can raise a complaint via ESCC about the advocacy service.