About the Service
At The Advonet Group, we are able to help you to speak up about your rights and wishes. This is called self-advocacy. We have some tools to help you to get your voice heard when you are using services or not getting the support you need.
We can all find ourselves at some point in our lives struggling to communicate what we want, don’t want or asking for help to understand. This may be due to being in a difficult situation, having a learning disability, mental health difficulty or a language barrier. Having the knowledge and ability to self-advocate can empower people and lead to positive life changes.
Clients who request advocacy can be empowered with the help of an advocate. However, in some circumstances, providing the support and tools to self-advocate can result in clients:
- Understanding how they feel
- Having the ability to make their own decisions
- Increase in self-confidence
- Communicate their feelings
- Achieving their goals
We have made a video, explaining what self-advocacy is and how it works:
What Does the Service Do
We can help you to build confidence and skills in speaking up about your needs and rights. This can be done by:
- Offering free self-advocacy tools and resources
- Providing free self-advocacy training
- Helping you to advocate for yourself by phone, email, text chat or video call
We have produced tools to help you self-advocate. These are:
- A self-advocacy toolkit – this has templates for complaint letters, forms and more
- Factsheets on benefits, housing and debt advice
- The Speak4Yourself Card – a two-sided card where you can say what you need help with and how people you speak to can support you
Our Leeds Autism AIM team have produced their own self-advocacy tools for autistic adults. View the Tools.
If you have any questions or requests about our self-advocacy tools, please email us at [email protected]. We will get back to you within two working days.
Who is the Service For?
The project is for adults who live in the Leeds area who wants or needs to speak up for themselves.
Our factsheets are specific to people who live in Leeds.
How to Access the Service
If you have any questions, want to make a referral for self-advocacy support or want to give feedback on our resources, we would like to hear from you.
For more information, please email us at [email protected] or call our office on 0113 244 0606 and ask for Kerry.
Self-Advocacy Pack
Please click on the links below to download copies of our self-advocacy pack and individual resources. They were last updated in June 2021.
We have made video guides for using different parts of the Self-Advocacy Pack. To watch them, please go to our YouTube channel and click on the ‘Self-Advocacy Tools’ playlist.
Self-Advocacy Factsheets
Please click on the links below to download PDFs of each of our six factsheets. They were last updated in June 2021.
- Applying for Council Housing
- Debt Support in Leeds
- Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Help when not eligible for council housing
- Homeless or At Risk
- Universal Credit
Speak4Yourself Card
Please click on the links below to download a form for our free Speak4Yourself Card and an example copy showing you what the card will look like.
How to use our Meeting Planner: Video guide
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