Where advocacy happens - Thursday

Advocacy matters and happens everywhere, not just behind a desk or phone.

To mark Advocacy Awareness Week 2023, we’re sharing snapshots from our advocates’ caseloads to illustrate the variety of issues our advocates are involved in, the practicalities of how we deliver our service and, most importantly, the impact we have on the people we support to help answer the question #WhatIsAdvocacy. *

Thursday morning – Your Voice Counts office, Gateshead town centre

This morning, I’m meeting up with someone I'm assisting with a complaint they want to make about an NHS service they’ve received. Everyone has the right to the support of an advocate when making an NHS complaint and I’ve been working with this person to help them navigate the process.

Today, we’re getting together at our office in Gateshead to go through the response they received to their complaint and get ready for a local resolution meeting. The person I'm assisting is deaf, so I made sure to have a sign language translator join us to help with BSL signing.

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Thursday afternoon – home visit, South Shields

I'm headed to South Shields to visit Sam at her home. Sam has a learning disability and is the mother of a young child. She recently left her abusive partner and has been signposted to us by her social worker. Our goal is to support Sam to take part in child protection and safeguarding proceedings and to help her to engage with other services that can help improve her family’s situation.

Today we’re catching up to see how she is getting on and prepare for some important meetings that are coming up in relation to her daughter’s long term living arrangements.