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Part C: Supporting guidance

This section provides important information on how to interpret and use this document. It contains information on the activities the document covers and those that it doesn't. It gives essential information on how to interpret and use the indicators and minimum practice we have listed.

 

Section contents

Interpreting and using the document

What activity is covered?

What isn't covered?

Indicators and minimum practice

Language

 

Interpreting and using the document

This document describes the highest standard of practice for Independent Advocacy organisations and groups to aim towards.

It is important to remember that it takes time for all of these organisations and groups to adopt best practice, and this must be taken into account for new organisations. Some areas of practice can take longer to develop than others, and you must take this into account if you are judging the practice of an organisation that has been created or set up to deal with a particularly urgent situation.

It is also important to remember that each individual principle listed here cannot be used on its own, as some principles limit others. For example, in part A, an advocate who initiates action should still ask for instruction. Independent Advocacy organisations sometimes face dilemmas where some principles go against others and which do not have 'right' solutions.

People judging the effectiveness of the practice of Independent Advocacy organisations will need to use both subjective or qualitative judgement and objective or quantitative measures. Subjective or qualitative judgement is formed from the opinions of the people who are making the judgements. Objective or quantitative measures are things that are more factually based and can be measured without taking any notice of the opinions of the people making the measurements.

Evaluations of Independent Advocacy organisations must take account of all the outcomes listed in this document. Judgement needs a team approach, which includes significant input from those with direct knowledge and experience of Independent Advocacy. Conclusions are not necessarily easy -for example, an Independent Advocacy organisation that receives more negative criticism from those who use it might be working with people who want help with more difficult problems. We have developed a separate system to make it possible to evaluate Independent Advocacy organisations.

 

What activity is covered?

Part A of this document applies to all the work that Independent Advocacy organisations carry out, both in aiming to provide support to individuals and in aiming to provide support to collective or self-advocacy groups.

The practice of collective or self-advocacy groups is described in part B, as is their support by other bodies.

While part A of this document is intended to cover the practice of Citizen Advocacy organisations, this is already described by well-recognised and established standards known as 'CAPE' (Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation). The document is intended to support, but not in any way to replace, the CAPE standards. The CAPE standards are produced in two forms -as a separate document Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation (O'Brien, J & Wolfensberger, W, 1988) and in a modified form within Learning From Citizen Advocacy Programs (John O'Brien, 1987).

When interpreting the section in part A on supporting the practice of advocates it is important to be aware of the differences between the practice of Citizen Advocacy organisations and other Independent Advocacy organisations. Citizen Advocacy organisations introduce two independent people, allowing a personal relationship to develop in which neither person 'belongs' to the organisation or can have their actions directed by it. In other Independent Advocacy organisations actions take place through advocates who they recruit, train, support and supervise, and who are answerable to it to some extent.

 

What isn't covered?

The terms 'advocate', 'advocacy' and 'advocacy organisation' are used for many other forms of activity. This document does not judge the appropriateness or value of this activity.

In particular, nothing in this document should be taken to affect the freedom that ordinary people have to stand up for others or for themselves in any way they choose.

The document does not comment on the practice of those who, as part of another role or organisation, provide support for people to make their views heard by others. This means it does not comment on the action of people, such as social workers, advice workers, or nurses, who advocate as part of their role.

 

Indicators and minimum practice

The list of indicators for each principle is not a list of requirements, features that should be encouraged, or standards. They are simply a note of some features which, if seen, would suggest that an organisation was working towards the relevant principle.

An organisation could be working towards the principle without some of these indicators being present, and in fact some indicators should never be seen in some types of organisation. Also, an observation of a situation which appears to be the opposite of the one described in an indicator does not necessarily mean that the organisation is failing to apply that principle. It is also important to remember that these are not full lists.

We have included minimum practice only for those principles where appropriate objective measurements can be made. The statements describe practice that is necessary in an Independent Advocacy organisation. It would be inappropriate for an organisation to only work to meet the stated minimum practice without also working to the stated principles. It is important to remember that the stated minimum practice may take new organisations some time to achieve. The key is that such an organisation can show it has definite and realistic plans to meet minimum practice within a reasonable timescale.

 

Language

Empowerment

In consultation, a small number of people raised strong objections to the use of the word 'empowerment'. It is argued that this word implies that advocates have power and that they generously pass some on to people who haven't. We agree that this is an entirely incorrect view of the role of an advocate.

In this document we use the word empowerment when referring to people who find that their life is determined (to a significant degree) by a system which is much more powerful than they are, and which is ignoring their hopes, ambitions and opinions. We see that this often results in people having a negative self-image that means they don't demand the rights and justice which everybody is entitled to. We use the word empowerment to describe the situation where someone comes to see that they already hold rights and to see that injustice is being done to them. We expect that people will become more able to stand up for themselves, using the power they already have.

We have not been able to find another word which we feel describes this process appropriately.

Independent Advocacy organisations and Independent Group Advocacy

These terms are used in this document as titles for different activities. In consultation, some people correctly commented that collective and self-advocacy groups are also organisations. We have not been able to find convenient and meaningful titles that satisfy everyone, but which are clearly different from one another. Suggestions have included 'representational advocacy', 'third-party advocacy', and 'individual advocacy' for Independent Advocacy organisations, and 'Independent Advocacy schemes' for both this and Independent Group Advocacy.

Unfortunately, none of these titles explains the situation. Both activities involve representation, both may involve a 'third party', and Independent Advocacy organisations may support both individuals and groups. As the last suggestion is used to refer to both activities its use would be confusing in this document.

We would like to confirm that this document assumes that both the activities described in part A and part B are forms of Independent Advocacy.

The words 'organisation', 'group', 'project' and 'scheme' are often used to describe the same things. We have chosen to use the word 'organisation' for the activity described in part A, and the word 'group' for part B. We hope the distinction adds to the document's clarity. We specifically rejected the use of the word 'project' for the activity in part A because, in consultation, many people said that this implies a short-term and temporary activity which is part of another organisation's work. Objections were also made by some people who felt that 'organisation' implies something impersonal and formal when good Independent Advocacy organisations are neither of these things.

"People the organisation believes need support"

This phrase, and others like it, are often used in the document to refer to people who may need the support of an advocate. It is used instead of others such as 'service users', 'disabled people', 'organisation users' and 'people supported by the organisation'. The first three of these alternatives do not cover, for example, people who do not use any services and people who do not currently use the organisation. The last alternative might not cover many of the relationships created by Citizen Advocacy organisations.

Documents

The word 'documents' is used several times in the lists of indicators. It is meant to mean documents written by an organisation or advocate to record what they have done. We have not used the word 'records' because this makes many people think about the kind of case notes or formal records which are kept about people by care and health services.

Advocate

The word 'advocate' is not intended to refer to legal advocates -people who are qualified to represent people in a court of law. For part A, a person who provides support to a Collective or Self-advocacy group is rarely referred to as an 'advocate' in practice. However, we have used this word throughout because it makes the document easier to read than if we had used the phrase 'advocate or person supporting a group' repeatedly, and it is intended to cover such people.

"Staff, advocates and volunteers"

This phrase is used in the document to mean people who are employed by the project, people who act as advocates, and people who act as volunteers for the project. Some people can be more than one of these things at the same time (for example, advocates might also be volunteers), but some are only one of these things (for example, someone volunteering as a member of a management committee).