Good Practice Recommendations - Advocacy
- Advocacy services need to clarify and publicise what the term ‘advocacy’ means.
- Advocacy services should be better promoted, both by the services themselves and by statutory agencies, for example before social care assessments (see Personal Assistance section).
- Where other services, such as mental health support schemes, provide an advocacy role, the type of advocacy provided sometimes needs to be clearer. Clients need to be told that independent advocacy services are also available as an alternative. This is an issue for staff training and for information given to the disabled person.
- There should be services which provide information and advice to disabled people who wish to self-advocate. This could be a role that an existing organisation takes on. This service should be competent in dealing with equality issues, such as the needs of LGB disabled people.
- Existing advocacy services need to be more proactive in promoting their services to LGB people, so that LGB people can approach the service with confidence.
- There needs to be an overall increase in the capacity of advocacy services for disabled people and for LGB people in Leeds as there are barely any specific advocacy services in these areas at the moment.
- There needs to be more discussion between advocacy organisations and LGB disabled people about advocacy needs, in order to develop the best model of advocacy for LGB disabled people in Leeds.
