Advocacy in Northamptonshire

A presentation about advocacy for people with learning disabilities

and family carers.

Introductions

• The Board had a presentation about Advocacy in April 2011.

• There were lots of questions

• People didn’t think it was fair that we only heard about the advocacy that the County Council were paying for.

• There are lots of other advocacy groups in the County.

• We are the Groups that work mainly with people with learning disabilities and their carers.

• Some other groups work with people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups, young people or drug or alcohol users. Some of these people might have learning disabilities.

Before we tell you about what we have been doing, we would like you to do some work.

On your tables you will find a pack of cards.

You need to sort the cards into three lists.

• ‘What you think advocates should do or be’

• ‘What you think advocates should not do or be’

• ‘What advocates might do’

• A lot of things can go on any of the piles of cards.

• This will depend on what the advocate has agreed, and how they work.

• Often there is no right or wrong answer.

• This can make it difficult for people to understand what an Advocate does.

Each of the organisations here today work in a slightly different way.

We are going to tell you a bit about all of us...

Our Services

• People can use their personal budgets to come to People First.

• We will support them to learn research, advocacy and office skills.

• If people have problems we will try to support them to get them sorted.

Our Services• We work with councils,

universities, partnership boards, individuals and the national forum to do research and find out things about the lives of people with learning disabilities so that we can make things better.

• Our members go to conferences around the world to speak up.

Our Work

• We are working on a Lottery Funded project to record our history.

• Our members help to run the regional forum.

• We are part of the Social History of Learning Difficulties Research Group.

• We are part of an Inclusive Research Project.

• We run and manage our own office.

• We are trying to get money for a health project.

• Our members go to the partnership board.

• We have run Skype training through a successful funding bid.

• We have run photography, archiving and interviewing training through the history project.

• We have given papers at conferences in Scotland and at the Open University.

• We went to Hungary to talk to other self advocates.

• We have done research about self advocacy groups.

• We have tried to start working with more young people.

• We have started a new website that we are building ourselves.

Families in Partnership• We provide Family Advocacy

• This means helping the whole family to speak up.

• We work with families who have a member with a severe learning disability.

• We work with people of all ages

What have we been doing

• We work with families who are having problems with social care and health services.

• Some of the things we have recently helped with include:

• Helping to get a Care Manager

• Support to move house

• Support with Child Protection issues

What have we been doing

• We are supporting some families who have relatives living in the Mencap homes that are being reprovisioned.

• We run a carers group for families who went through the Towards 2010 Reprovisioning

• We run a carers group for a private provider

Is a joint project between Advocacy, Alliance and VoiceAbility.

We cover all of Northamptonshire

We provide different sorts of Issue based Advocacy…

Total Voice Northamptonshire provide different

sorts of Advocacy:

• Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA)

– support people who have no one to support them and who cannot make big decisions.

• Independent Mental Health Advocate (IMHA)

– support people who are detained under the Mental Health Act.

Anyone could need the help of an IMCA or IMHA including People With Learning Disabilities.

We also provide Advocacy for:

• People With Learning Disabilities

• Carers

• People with Mental Health Issues

• People with sensory impairments

• People with physical disabilities

Since Total Voice Northamptonshire launched in August 2010 we have had over 1200 referrals!

Between April and September 2011 we have worked with: 391 people

On 475 issues!

Types of advocacy we provide

• Individual

• Group

• Short-term issue based

• Peer

• Right 2 Talk Project:

Training adults with learning difficulties/disabilities to self advocate.

The work we have been doing since April 2011

• Residents Voice Project:

Running self-advocacy group sessions and giving individual, short term issue based advocacy to adults with learning difficulties/disabilities who live in their own homes in the community.

• Supporting People Project:

Giving individual, short- term issue based advocacy to people who are living in “Supporting People” accommodation. Also running a drop-in service for people who don`t use services for different reasons

• The Prisons Project:

Giving individual, short term issue based advocacy to people with mental health difficulties and may have a learning disability/difficulty too

• Training Project:

Running training for young people with learning difficulties/disabilities that helps them self advocate in every day life.

The number of people we have supported with learning disabilities/difficulties since

April 2011.

The Residents Voice, Right 2 Talk and training projects have been supporting 83 people between them.

• Supporting People Project supports people with mental health difficulties who may also have learning disabilities/difficulties.

4 have said they have a learningdisability/difficulty as well as amental health issue.

• The Prisons Project has been set up recently and the advocates have only just started going into the prisons (November 2011) so numbers are not known yet.

• Staff : Understanding that people have the right to privacy in their own home and that although staff work there it is where people live first.

Some of the issues we have supported people with

• Life Skills:

Supporting people to be as independent as possible in their homes to include; cooking and cleaning their homes.

• Bullying issues:

Supporting people who have or are being bullied.

• Feelings:

Supporting people to understand their feelings and emotions and how to deal with them and express them.

• Self-advocacy:

Supporting people to speak up for themselves about issues in their home and life.

• Noise:

Supporting people to complain about noise in their home.

• Going out:

Supporting people to tell staff where they want to go in the evening and at weekends.

How many people have we all worked with?

Since April 2011 the total number of people we have worked with is 471

This includes some people we have supported at training sessions.

Some of these people have more than one problem, or issue. We have recorded more than 2000 interventions or actions

Group WorkIn Small Groups please talk about these

things:

1.What has worked well about advocacy you have received?

2.What has not worked well?

Please be prepared to feedback to everyone else.

And to finish...

• All of these are things an advocate might have been asked to do, but are they true or false?

OR

Lay a Carpet

Baby sit

Go Shopping

Not tell a person we are supporting about a

conversation about them

Lend Money

Put up Flat Pack Furniture

Do twenty Push ups!