Rethink Advocacy – Essex All Age Advocacy Service

Community advocacy

Community advocacy might be offered when advocacy isn’t assigned to someone as a legal right. As with all advocacy services, it can support people who are facing important decisions that impact on their quality of life and independence or have long-term implications. It helps people who would have substantial difficulty advocating for themselves and don’t have a family member or friend to support them. This means difficulty understanding, holding, using, or weighing up information, as well as communicating views, wishes and feelings.

Issue based to:

Promote independence, choice and control
Promote social inclusion, equality, health improvement and well being
Promote empowerment for service users
Facilitate self-help and self-advocacy

This advocacy will focus on supporting people in making difficult and /or important decisions which may impact on their quality of life and independence and /or have long term consequences, not on the everyday decisions of daily life; it is not an ongoing support service.

Who is eligible?

People who are 18 + and :

Have significant difficulty advocating for themselves and need assistance
Have no one willing or appropriate to advocate on their behalf
Are18 years and over.
Are physically resident in Essex
Could be self-funders, physically or mentally frail living in care settings
Are carers of adults who meet the above criteria
Are people seeking continuing Health Care Funding (CHC) (If the local authority is involved in any element of the assessment or planning process even if only a small percentage then the advocacy duty under the Care Act is triggered).
Families/carers of adults subject to a safeguarding alert
Have Autism or ADHD
English is not their first language

Priority

Immediacy of need and consideration of the consequence of not providing the service
Safeguarding always is given the highest priority

Referral Form

Download the Essex Community Referral Form v1.1 here.

Further Information

For further information on the advocacy process, visit the Rethink Essex All Age Advocacy Service website here.

Telephone: 0300 7900 559
Email: essexadvocacy@rethink.org