Community Advocacy - The Advonet Group

Community Advocacy can help you to understand, say what your choices are and be involved in what you need.

About the Service

Over the summer of 2023, we have reviewed our model of Community Advocacy. We wanted to make sure that we used our resources to provide the best possible service to everybody in Leeds with an advocacy need.

As a result, we are moving to a Community Advocacy Hub model. This will mean advocates are available in different community locations in Leeds across the week.

If you have a health and social care need and are looking for advocacy, you can now visit one of our Community Hubs. They are in four different locations around the city and held on different days/times to hopefully suit all across the city.

At the Hubs, you can either have a drop-in appointment or take part in a group advocacy session to help think about how you can overcome a challenge you are facing and develop your self-advocacy skills.

Please click on the button below for more information about the Community Hubs which are running this week.

Community Advocacy Hubs

Keep an eye on this page. We plan to vary the locations of hubs over time to make it easier for the people who need us to find us.

If you are involved with a community location in Leeds that would like to host a Community Advocacy Hub, please get in touch. If you would like to talk about the new model of our Community Advocacy service, please do the same.

Contact

0113 244 0606

[email protected]

Unit A3, Unity Business Centre,

26 Roundhay Road, Leeds, LS7 1AB

@advonetuk

Key Contact

Kerry Shipley, Universal Advocacy Lead – Community and Health Complaints Advocacy
[email protected]

What Does the Service Do

We currently run three Community Advocacy Hubs every week. Two are in-person on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other is run remotely for phone calls and video meetings every Wednesday.

Tuesdays 10am-1pm: Alternate weeks at Deacon House, Seacroft and the Armley Community Hub
Wednesdays 9am-1pm: Every week remotely, for online or phone meetings
Thursdays 12 Noon-3pm: Alternate weeks at the Reginald Centre, Chapeltown and the Dewsbury Road Community Hub, Beeston

The client can “drop in” to one of these sessions, but there is no guarantee an advocate will be available. If the client cannot be seen at that session, then they will be offered a booked appointment at a future session.

Alternatively, the client can arrange to be seen at a pre-agreed time during one of these sessions by calling our office (0113 244 0606) and arranging this through the First Contact Team. If the client is unable to get to one of the centres, then an advocate can call the client either by telephone or video call at a prearranged time during one of the sessions.

Who is the Service For?

If a client attends a session with an issue that is not advocacy eligible (i.e. the problem is not around being heard or having rights upheld), then the advocate will attempt to signpost the client to other services.

The advocate’s priority will always be to assist the client to self-advocate wherever possible, therefore the client should expect to leave the session with some ideas and practical tools to help progress their issue themselves.

Where a client has a greater advocacy need than this and where time allows, the session time may be spent by the advocate drafting a letter, sending emails, or making calls with the client. Where time does not permit this, the client may be offered a further appointment at a future Community Advocacy Hub session.

Further Information

Any Community Advocacy referrals that were received prior to Monday 31st July 2023 and placed on the Community waiting list will be provided with the Community Advocacy that was promised to them at the point of referral. They will not be expected to attend a Community Advocacy Hub, although they may choose to do so.

While we are in the early stages of the Community Advocacy Hubs, we are keen to learn and develop the service based on our clients’ feedback. If you have feedback, you can pass this to the advocate directly or contact the office and speak to one of our First Contact Team.

As with our other advocacy services, we encourage you to do as much for yourself as you can. If you need support with this, our Self-Advocacy service can help. They can provide free self-advocacy resources to help you speak up for yourself and your rights. Visit our Self-Advocacy Resources page to find them.