My thoughts on Citizen Advocacy - Clare Mendham

When I first came across the concept of Citizen Advocacy I was totally captivated by the idea; I just thought the idea of bringing together two people who wouldn’t ordinarily have met and supporting them to form an ordinary long term equal relationship was fabulous. The advocate would be unpaid and there because they wanted to be, they would be independent from the other paid support staff and professionals in their partner’s life and their loyalty would be solely with their partner. If the partner wished, the citizen advocate could help them speak up for themselves.

Later, I was delighted to become a Citizen Advocacy co-ordinator, and to have the opportunity to work in my community and bring people together into these partnerships. I took to it well. I’m a natural people person and it all seemed quite straightforward to me in many ways. I knew lots of people and my enthusiasm seemed to be infectious. I seemed to have a knack for seeing who would get along with who and working out where they should initially meet.

Now, I've moved on from this role and I've had chance to reflect on my experiences. Although I did continue to love many aspects of the job throughout, there were also some niggles that just kept cropping up. At the end of 18 months I had very mixed feelings about the concept and the project that I was involved with. I felt disillusioned and in many respects believed that the concept was outdated.

Can a manufactured relationship be successful?

Of the 17 partnerships I’d matched, I view only 5 as being a ‘success’. I felt that to be a success the partnership needed to be solid, equal and that it seemed that it was going to be long lasting – and also that the partnership was proactive and there had been some definite positive changes in the partner’s life as a result. Of the other partnerships, the advocates were often too busy with other commitments and unable to see their partner regularly. These advocates felt a lot of guilt; around whether they were letting their partner down by not doing enough. I can't count the number of conversations I had with advocates around this issue, with them feeling that they wanted to continue but that someone else could perhaps give more time. I would try to explain about it being an ordinary relationship and that all of us tend to see our friends less when we’re incredibly busy, But as time went on I began to wonder: What are the odds of an essentially manufactured relationship lasting in the long term?

The few partnerships that did truly blossom were the ones where both parties stepped away from the partner advocate labels and connected around common interests. The stronger of these asked to break away from the organisation as they found it ‘got in the way’ of their friendship and time together. I was always really thrilled when this happened! (Although you would have the sinking feeling of knowing your statistics were not going to reflect the success of the relationship.)

Referrals

As most co-ordinators are, I was inundated with referrals and had over 30 in my first 12 months. Each co-ordinator was expected to match 12 referrals each year and had a ‘working list’ of 6-8 people who we would focus on finding advocates for. The rest of the referrals would sit there; some of them I had inherited from previous co-ordinators and had been waiting for 2 to 3 years. The funding for my post was particularly constrictive, as it required that 5 of the 12 matches were of people who received their support packages from a particular service provider.

I often became frustrated by how many people I seemed to be letting down. When going to see a referral for the first time I knew it was more than likely that I wouldn’t find them an advocate.

It seemed we were letting people down at a great financial cost: a lot of money was going into the project yet we didn’t seem to reach that many people in the area and have a positive impact on their lives.

Introductions

While in post I’d put a lot of thought and effort in trying to make introductions work well. One tactic was to provide opportunities for mingling – to enable natural meetings and matches whenever I could. When this wasn’t possible, I tried to support matching to be as relaxed, natural and as fun as possible. I would spend time getting to know both parties, and thinking about where and who they were comfortable with. Some introductions were done in pubs and cafes, others in pottery classes and swimming pools.

Despite my efforts, I found the moment of introduction to be nerve racking for both parties, and too much like a blind date. Both sides knew that ideally this would be a long term partnership and felt pressure to get on well and connect. (All potential advocates had been on a 5 session preparation course that had taught them about the principles of citizen advocacy.)

Having read about other projects where an individual is helped to join local groups and form their own connections and friends, I am now feeling that this alternative would be more natural. With this they would form stronger relationships, tending towards the creation of a friendship group rather than a single life long companion.

Terminology and roles

One of my major frustrations was with confusion around terminology. So much of my time was spent with new referrals, partners, potential advocates, advocates, members of support teams and professionals explaining exactly what a citizen advocate is and what their role is. It didn’t seem to matter how clear I was, there was still a great deal of confusion.

I experienced support workers asking advocates to "cover a shift" as someone was off sick and they were there anyway; professionals questioning what qualifications an individual had to be a citizen advocate; and partners and advocates several months or years down the line becoming muddled as to who had what role. Before meeting his citizen advocate for the first time one partner asked if they would be wearing a wig like people do in court.

The term 'partner' can also cause confusion. In recent years this word has been adopted to mean one’s chosen life partner. An advocate I supported was presumed to be a lesbian when she mentioned being a citizen advocate and ‘her partner Sarah’ to her colleagues at a new job.

People in the citizen advocacy world can very often be quite snooty about 'befriending' organisations – asserting the differences between this and citizen advocacy. I would often hear the phrase, "well I don’t have befriends I have friends". Meanwhile the little voice in my head would be saying "well I don’t have citizen advocates either, I have friends."

The aim of citizen advocacy is to establish an ordinary relationship between two people who would probably not have met. The citizen advocate is often the only person in their partner’s life who’s not paid to be there. However, in some instances– no matter how many training sessions were done with support staff and how many long chats were had with family members or others– it still seemed that the citizen advocate was just another special labelled person in this person’s life. Another labelled person to fit in with the professionals, the day centre and the bright mini bus to take them there. And just something else to emphasise that there was nobody and nothing in this person’s life that did not have a special name attached to it – that they weren't regarded by anyone as 'ordinary'.

The future

At the end of my time working in Citizen Advocacy I had very mixed feelings about it. I felt that I’d been really privileged to have the opportunity to do a job that in many respects I’d loved, I’d met so many people and had brought many people together. I had been fortunate enough to be involved in a project where I had been able to experiment and try new ideas out. And I've been able to meet some really inspiring people who have helped me form my own ideas on community building and how I’d like to be involved in it in the future.

However, as you can see I became quite negative about the concept of Citizen Advocacy at the same time. In the past 6 months since leaving this work I’ve done a lot of thinking and reflecting, and have come to the conclusion that there is a place for Citizen Advocacy, if it is done well. In my opinion it needs to re-mould itself over time to overcome some of the problems I encountered. I have laid out some ideas below. These thoughts would in my view just be the beginning of this process.

Co-ordinator specification

Ideally co-ordinators should work in a small area. They should be from this area and already know many people there. More than this – they'd be someone who was naturally good at making connections. It seems probable that such a person would be 'found' rather than advertised for in the traditional sense, although it would still be possible to specify requirements in a job description.

The person I have in mind would have a greater understanding of the purpose of their role and have the skills and connections to do it. They’d naturally be passionate both about citizen advocacy and the community they were a part of. A few people I met as a co-ordinator spring to mind; they had lived in their community a long time, were known and respected by everyone and had excellent people skills and a real understanding of the area and what mattered to local people. I felt in awe of them. My accent was far from being local and I often found this to be a hindrance (although one that I would eventually overcome with time and effort).

The area should be small enough to allow the co-ordinator to become recognised in the local community and the places that are important to that community; for example in local shops and cafes. They should also know all the local community groups and voluntary sector organisations in the area. They should get to know the main figures in the community well, and become known by them.

Referrals

Some of the original Citizen Advocacy programmes in the states have stopped taking referrals altogether. This solves the problem of co-ordinators having far too many referrals, and of them spending a lot of their time visiting referrals that they will never match.

I think this is an interesting way of working because it would allow the co-ordinator to be freed up to spend their time actively looking for the most isolated people in a community. In the process of actively seeking referrals: they would get to know the area they are working in more depth; they would build up an understanding of why the someone is so isolated; they would start thinking of ways to find a potential advocate; and perhaps most importantly they would meet a lot of people along the way.

Terminology & relationships

How about getting rid of the terms citizen advocate and partner? Perhaps the term friends could be used instead? This could potentially free up a lot of the co-ordinators time as they wouldn’t need to constantly do sessions with all the parties involved explaining exactly what a citizen advocate is and defining their role. Perhaps both parties would feel more comfortable and less pressured. It would also allow the person with a learning disability to have someone totally ordinary in their life who didn’t have a label attached to them: the whole point of citizen advocacy.

Once a strong friendship has been formed between the two individuals and both parties are happy with it, perhaps they could become 'independent' and the citizen advocacy project (or perhaps community connecting would be a better term) could step back from supporting them. As a co-ordinator I found a few of the strongest partnerships asked to step back from their involvement with the organisation. One advocate said to me, “well I have lots of friends in my life and I don’t have external support to maintain these relationships.” I totally agreed with her and began to think about how logical her point was.

If the organisation could step back from partnerships in this way it could potentially solve a number of problems: it would free up the co-ordinators time to look for more people to introduce to each other; it could help both parties involved to view their partnership as an ordinary friendship; and it would allow the relationship to continue unscathed if the project closes or its circumstances change.

Thinking bigger

In my view these changes would just be the beginning. What I am about to describe would be the dream, the long term aim that the project was striving towards.

I have found in the past that citizen advocacy organisations being inundated with referrals and lacking advocates results in potential advocates being seen as an asset and referrals seen almost as an annoyance. As a result referrals are so numerous that they often aren’t invited along to social events whereas potential advocates are. This always seemed to make no sense to me, surely as many people should come as possible from the local area and have a chance to mingle. The whole point in citizen advocacy is that EVERYONE in a community is an asset and their gifts should be recognised and celebrated. In my dream, people would no longer be divided into these categories of 'referral' and 'potential advocate' and 'partner' and 'advocate'.

Where now?

I recognise that a great deal of thought has gone into the concept of Citizen Advocacy from some very inspirational people. When the concept of Citizen Advocacy was first born I don’t think it was intended to develop into what it has become in many organisations in the UK. The whole point was that they were not setting up or providing a service for more isolated groups. They were aiming to set up fluid and dynamic organisations that caused natural connections and relationships to form.

I feel that there were parts of the project I was involved in that didn't work, in areas that are probably common to most advocacy organisations. I feel that it is time for a re-think; it is time to go back and look at what Citizen Advocacy was really meant to be, and to make changes accordingly.

I am not certain that the changes I'm suggesting would all be a total success; I'm simply providing some thoughts on possible remedies to the frustrations I found as a citizen advocacy co-ordinator. I recognise that my thoughts are subjective; for example my view on whether a partnership is a success or not is very personal. I am not claiming to be an authority on this subject. However, I am interested to hear from other projects as to how they have overcome some of these difficulties.

I see these thoughts as only a starting point; just the beginning of a process of citizen advocacy organisations beginning to make some changes. Having been in touch with projects in the states, it seems that all citizen advocacy organisations have a great deal they can learn from each other, and the more talking they do the better. Perhaps some kind of web forum could be set up?

To conclude, I feel I should point out once again that the main ethos behind the model of Citizen Advocacy is, fantastic. This needs to remain at the forefront of every Citizen Advocacy project’s vision; but we may need to try to break some of our current practices to allow this vision to become an effective guide to our work.

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If you would like to write a response to this article for inclusion on the isja web site (or for forwarding to Clare) please e-mail it to Robert Weetman using the address below (extra spaces have been included in the address to discourage junk mail – remove these before sending your email – so "rweet man @" becomes "rweetman@")

rweet man @ isja .org .uk