Advocacy in Mental Health

It can be extremely frustrating when you have lots to say but don’t know how to say, aren’t listened to or simply can’t communicate your needs in the best way.

For individuals with a mental health diagnosis, it can be especially difficult to deal with.

In this blog, we’ll discuss what advocacy is, what an advocate does, who can be an advocate and whether a person has a legal right to an advocate, along with some useful contacts.

What is advocacy?

People with mental health issues can sometimes struggle to have their wants and needs taken seriously by those around them. As you can imagine, this is extremely frustrating and difficult to deal with – especially when they have to communicate so often with healthcare professionals. Individuals may find that they aren’t always given the opportunity or choice to be involved in their own care.

This is when advocacy can provide the perfect solution. This is when they are given the help and support of a person to communicate their views and stand up for their rights. A person who does this is called an advocate.

What does an advocate do?

The role of an advocate depends entirely on what they are needed to do – for example, the level of support needed.

An advocate has the power to listen to your views, support you in exploring your rights, give you the information needed to make your own choices, help you get in touch with relevant people or attend appointments/meetings with you.

An advocate won’t give you their personal opinion, make choices for you, solve your problems or make any judgment about you or your situation.

How can an advocate help you?

What your advocate does for you is entirely your choice, it’s also dependent on the type of advocacy you want to access.

The following are examples of what they can and will help you with, on your request:

• Appointments – this may be doctor’s appointments, health and social care appointments, dental visits and more!
• Benefits claims – an advocate might help you with your benefit claims, Work Capability Assessments (WCAs) and they can even help you appeal claims that have been rejected
• Housing issues – an advocate may be able to support you with dealing with rent areas or general housing problems. They are there to support you through the process if you feel you can’t manage it yourself

Who can be an advocate?

Again, depending on your specific situation – there are several types of advocates you can get in touch with.

Professional advocacy can be accessed through organisations and charities, they are completely separate from the NHS and health and social care services. Your loved ones, friends and even carers can be your advocate.

Who has the legal right to an advocate?

There are special circumstances when a person may be entitled to a professional advocate:

• A social care advocate
• Independent Mental Health Advocate (IMHA)
• Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA)

This is referred to as statutory advocacy.

Useful contacts

Every person’s situation is different and dependent on their circumstances, they may require different support.

Several organisations can help you find statutory and non-statutory advocacy services in your region:

• Mind Infoline – they will be able to give you contact details of your local advocacy groups and advocacy organisations
• Your local Mind – they may offer advocacy services or be able to offer you information and support in finding out about your rights and entitlements
• Rethink Mental Illness – they have an online directory of advocacy services across the UK 
• Advocacy organisations, such as VoiceAbility and POhWER – they provide advocacy services in many areas, you can contact them directly to see if they cover your local area
• For legal advocates – you can see Mind’s page on statutory advocacy for more information

As frustrating as it is, if you’re not entitled to a statutory advocate, you might find there aren’t many options for advocacy services in your area, you may even struggle to find one at all. This can be difficult, particularly if you feel you don’t have somebody around you who you can ask for support.

Please don’t panic though, there are still some options for you to try. Organisations such as Rethink Mental Illness and VoiceAbility can help you set up group advocacy in your area. Group advocacy can involve people with similar issues coming together to support each other to be listened to. You can also ask a loved one, friend or carer to act as an advocate for you.

Thank you for reading!

We hope you found our article – we hope this article has helped you understand the role and importance of an advocate.

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References

What is advocacy? – Mind

Advocacy for mental health – Rethink Mental Illness

Image by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash.