Advocacy for social work clients

Forth Valley Advocacy Professional Independent Advocacy services in the Forth Valley

Professional independent advocacy services are delivered by Forth Valley Advocacy under contract with the Clackmannanshire, Falkirk and Stirling Councils and NHS Forth Valley.

Local organisation, Forth Valley Advocacy, provides a high quality service that will ensure that people who need professional independent advocacy services will have access to professional services at no financial cost to themselves.

What is advocacy?

People may use a range of health and social care services provided by the NHS and Local Authorities and may at times require the services of a professional advocate to deal with a specific issue or concern.  Professional Independent Advocacy is one-to-one advocacy support for an individual on a specific problem at a particular period of time.

Who is advocacy for?

Forth Valley Advocacy leafletThe new service will ensure that there is professional independent advocacy service for people in the Forth Valley area in order to meet requirements for service provision under:

There are other models of advocacy but Forth Valley Advocacy's services relate only to professional independent advocacy which is expected to last for a few weeks or months while helping a Service User deal with a specific issue.  This service does not include citizenship advocacy, peer group advocacy, support for self/collective advocacy or befriending.

What can advocacy do for me?

The services will be flexible and typically may include, for example:

  • communicating with people referred for a service and their family, friends and carers to establish the nature of the need which the advocacy services will address
  • establishing with the Service User what results they are looking for and their options for action
  • supporting people or speaking for them at Mental Health Tribunals, appeals hearings, etc
  • supporting the Service User or speaking for them at formal service meetings
  • negotiating on the Service User's behalf with service providers in seeking to address the issue of concern

Children or young people under the age of 16 years may access this service if they are subject to action under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.

For further information about independent advocacy, please read the Scottish Government's Guide to independent advocacy

Who to contact?

For more information about Forth Valley Advocacy please contact Forth Valley Advocacy:

Forth Valley Advocacy
1 The Bungalows
Stirling Road
Larbert
FK5 4SD
Tel: 01324 557070  

Email Forth Valley Advocacy