3. Introduction
The act or process of
supporting a cause or proposal;
the act or process of
advocating something…
4. Advocacy definitions
• Advocacy is taking action to help people
say what they want, secure their rights,
represent their interests and obtain the
services they need.
• “Advocates and advocacy schemes work in
partnership with the people they support
and take their side.
• “Advocacy promotes social inclusion,
equality and social justice.” Advocacy
Charter, Action for Advocacy (2002)
4
5. What is advocacy?
Befriending Counselling Choices Mediation
Legal support Rights Having a voice Support
Advice Dependency Empowerment
Making
decisions
Impartial Representation
6. Why Advocacy is Necessary?
Rights – concerned with law & social
structures
Participation – concerned with move to
inclusion, citizenship, & involvement in
recovery (e.g. Individualized funding)
Power – concerned with shifting power to
families & individuals & distributing valued
resources more equitably
8. History of advocacy
•1950s – scandals in long stay
hospitals
•1960s – increasing awareness of
rights and the way people are treated
who need services
•1966 – Wolfensburger established the
first Citizen Advocacy project in
America 8
9. History of advocacy cont…
• 1979 – first Citizen Advocacy project in
London
• 1983 and 1984 – developments in
advocacy for mental health patients,
people with learning difficulties, and
children
• 1980s – till date – legislative and policy
changes based on the rights of individuals
to have a voice, choice and representation
10. Types of Advocacy
Here we will refer to five types of
advocacy:
•Individual Advocacy
•Citizen Advocacy
•Systems Advocacy
•Parent Advocacy
•Self Advocacy
11. Individual Advocacy
Here the advocate concentrates their
efforts on one or two people only.
There are two common forms of
individual advocacy
•Informal Advocacy
•Formal advocacy
12. Informal Advocacy
• When people like parents,
friends, family members or
agencies speak out and
advocate for vulnerable people
this is termed informal
advocacy
13.
14. Formal advocacy
•Formal advocacy more
frequently involves
organizations that pay their
staff to advocate for someone
or for a group of individuals.
15.
16. Citizen Advocacy
• A Citizen advocacy is a partnership
between an individual who is vulnerable
and not in a good position to exercise or
defend their rights as a citizen, and a
member of the community who is
independent of those providing direct
services.
• A person may be vulnerable because of
disability, old age or mental health
difficulties.
17. Citizen Advocacy cont…
•A Citizen Advocate is someone
who volunteers their time and is
recruited by a paid, trained
advocate coordinator.
•The coordinators role is to create
and support relationships
between an advocate and partner
(vulnerable person). .
18. Citizen Advocacy is NOT a:
• Buddy Program
• Volunteer Program
• Complaints Service
• Paid Advocacy Service
• Legal Service
Citizen Advocates are involved because they have
made a voluntary commitment to be a loyal
supporter of a person with intellectual disability, to
be a friend, who can, when necessary, protect and
safeguard their interests.
19. System Advocacy
•This form of advocacy is primarily
concerned with influencing and
changing the system (legislation,
policy and practices) in ways that
will benefit people with a
disability as a group within
society.
20. Systems Advocacy cont,,,
This can include influencing:
• the creation of new laws or changes to
current laws
• the priorities and plans of government and
non-government agencies
• the policies and procedures that relate to
services or systems
• the way in which government and non-
government agencies provide services.
21. Parent Advocacy
•Parent advocacy is concerned with
advocating on issues that affect
the person with a disability and
their family.
•The focus is on the needs of the
person with a disability, not the
parents or family.
22. Parent Advocacy cont….
•However, some parent advocacy
focuses on the needs of parents
first.
•Whilst parents have substantial
needs for support and resources,
when we talk about parent
advocacy we mean advocacy by
parent groups for people with a
disability.
23. Self Advocacy
•Self-advocacy is the ability to
speak-up for yourself and the
things that are important to you.
•Self-advocacy means you are able
to ask for what you need and
want and tell people about your
thoughts and feelings.
24. Self Advocacy cont….
•self-advocacy means you know
your rights and
responsibilities, you speak-up
for your rights, and you are
able to make choices and
decisions that affect your life.
Editor's Notes
“Advocacy is taking action to help people say what they want, secure their rights, represent their interests and obtain the services they need. Advocates and advocacy schemes work in partnership with the people they support and take their side.
Advocacy promotes social inclusion, equality and social justice.”
Advocacy Charter, Action for Advocacy (2002)
This definition is the one that is widely used by advocacy services. It is linked to the advocacy Charter, Code of Practice for Advocates and the Quality Performance Mark for advocacy.
Exercise
In pairs then feeding back to the group. The purpose of this exercise is to get people thinking immediately about what advocacy is and if they have to explain to a client then it is important that they can do this in a short and clear way. This exercise will be repeated towards the end of this module when they have had more understanding of the role of an advocate and what they do and why.
Discuss what key words you might use to describe advocacy.
In one minute explain to your partner what you understand by the term advocacy as though you were explaining it to a client.
How easy was this exercise? What, if any, difficulties did you have?
Feed back to the group some of the key words you used to describe advocacy.
It may be difficult to accurately identify the starting point of the advocacy movement as advocacy has arguably been around in one form or another since mankind started to organise itself into societies or communities. People have always fought to be heard, fought against injustice, persecution and forms of discrimination.
In modern day however, organised forms of advocacy began to take shape in the latter half of the 20th century.
Following the Second World War, many people started to question different aspects of Western culture, including psychiatry and how services were provided to vulnerable people. This led to a number of patients, relatives, friends and service providers questioning whether it was right to lock people with mental health needs or learning disabilities away in large asylums for long periods of time.
From the 1950s onwards, numerous scandals concerning long stay hospitals placed pressure on the government who considered their closure. At this point a number of charities lobbied for change including more legal protection for patients.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, an increasing awareness of rights and the way society treated people who needed services, led to the development of citizen advocacy. In 1966 Wolfensberger introduced the first citizen advocacy scheme in America. The first citizen advocacy organisation in the UK was established in 1979 in London. At a similar time in America, a number of parents of children with learning difficulties got together to discuss the idea to have somebody special who could look after the rights of their children, as if they were their own.
More information on this in the addition information resource.