Community Advocacy

About community advocacy

Community advocacy is available in most of our advocacy areas. It starts with us understanding your circumstances, your point of view and what might be stopping you from getting what you want.

Each area has different issues they can support with and different eligbility criteria. If we are not able to provide you with a community advocate, we will help find an alternative organisation. 

Community Advocacy predominantly focuses on health and social care related issues, for example if you are struggling to communicate with  your GP. Usually you have to be unable to advocate for yourself and have no one able to help you with the specific issue. 

Our advocacy is time limited and issue specific. This means you need to have a specific issue you need support with and the advocacy will only be for a set time. If you have multiple issue, we will usually check which one is a priority to support you with first. 

Areas where we provide Community Advocacy

• Barnsley
• Hackney
• Wandsworth
• Richmond
• Camden
• Islington 

Please note most service will have a waiting list which we will let you know about when you enquire. 

The service is mostly run by volunteers who have been trained to provide advocacy. 

Camden & Islington 

The service is led by volunteers and will usually mean the advocate can make contact once a week once allocated. There is currently a waiting list for the cases to be allocated due to high demand.

The community advocacy service has a eligbility criteria that requires someone to have substantial difficulty in any of the following tasks:

• understanding relevant information
• retaining information
• using or weighing up the information 
• communicating their views, wishes and feelings 

And/or where the lack of an advocate is likely to lead to: 

• breakdown in relationships with professional bodies or
• significant impact on wellbeing

The person must also be aged 18 or older, or the person is aged 16 or 17 and likely to have a continuing need for the service beyond the age of 18

They must be a resident of Camden or Islington. 

They must have no appropriate person or service that can advocate for them. 

The issue they need support with must be around the following: 

• health and social care issue
• Caring for someone 
• making first contact with Adult Social Care
• Raising a complaint or concern about a social care provider
• Access to housing and escalating any issue with housing
• Accessing or engaging with other support or services 
• Benefits issues, including support for tribunals 
• Employment issues
• Supporting parents understand Child Protection cases
• Understanding correspondence received from another service

Wandsworth & Richmond 

The service is led by volunteers and will usually mean the advocate can make contact once a week once allocated. There is currently a waiting list for the cases to be allocated due to high demand.

The community advocacy service has a eligbility criteria which means someone must: 

• Want support for a health and social care related issue and who are not eligble for statatory advocacy services
• Have no one that can advocate or them and feel they are unable to advocate for themselves
• Be residing in Wandsworth or Richmond

Support will be short term and help for that specific issue

The service cannot support with issues around housing, child protection, benefits or employment. 

Hackney 

The service is led by volunteers and will usually mean the advocate can make contact once a week once allocated. There is currently a waiting list for the cases to be allocated due to high demand.

The community advocacy service has a eligbility criteria which means someone must: 

• Be known to Adult Social Care or related team
• Be residing in Hackney
• Have no one that can advocate for them 
• Want support for a health and social care related issue

The service can support with child protection issues. 

The service cannot support with housing, benefits or employment related issues. 

This service would with partner organisations, so we will check we have your permission to send your details to them before progressing. The main provider currently is Afridac and Choice. 

Barnsley 

This service has the following eligbility criteria: 

• The person must have a Barnsley address 
• The person must be over 18 
• The person must have a vulnerability which makes is hard for them to advocate for themselves
• The person must have no one that can advocate for them

The service can support with a wide range of issues including housing, benefits.

The service is short term and issue based. 

The service is currently on a waiting list. 

Peer advocacy (Currently no services are offering this)

Work with someone who has similar experiences to you, so they are well-placed to understand your needs.

Find out more about peer advocacy

Citizen advocacy (Currently no services are offering this)

Develop long-term support with a volunteer advocate from the local community.

Find out more about citizen advocacy