What is advocacy?
Local authorities must involve you in the decisions that are made about your care and support. If you have difficulty being involved in these decisions, your local authority must provide an advocate. Unless there is someone else suitable to support you.
Advocacy is completely independent from the local authority, including the adult social care teams.
Advocates can help you explore available options and express your own decisions. They do not make decisions on your behalf.
When necessary there are local organisations that can provide independent advocates.
POhWER and Cambridgeshire Deaf Association are working jointly under a new advocacy contract. They can help you:
- understand and safeguard your rights
- get information
- request access to services that meet your needs
- become more independent
- ensure your views, wishes, and choices are represented, understood and can be acted upon
This includes specialist advocacy support for people with learning disabilities and/or autism, and deaf people (including those who use British Sign Language, deafblind manual or other visual communication), who are residents of Cambridgeshire.
Types of advocacy
- Care Act Advocacy
- Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA)
- Relevant Person’s Paid Representative (RPPR)
- Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA)
- NHS Complaints Advocacy
About POhWER
POhWER was established in 1996 by a group of people with disabilities who were fighting social injustice and challenges in their lives. POhWER still operates with these roots at the heart of everything it does.
POhWER supports marginalised, vulnerable and socially excluded people through charitable work. In 2022/23, POhWER supported 156,405 people with 101,736 advocacy issues. POhWER Information and Advice Help Hubs handled 367,873 calls and contacts.
Telephone: 0300 456 2370 (charged at your standard network rate).
You can find information in easy read format on the POhWER website.
About Cambridgeshire Deaf Association
Cambridgeshire Deaf Association (CDA) was established over 100 years ago to support Deaf people and people with hearing loss. CDA also support clients with additional needs such as learning difficulties or physical disabilities.
CDA has been delivering advocacy for nearly 10 years and is a leading Deaf advocacy provider in the UK. CDA has experience in delivering different types advocacy to ensure that Deaf people are able to challenge injustices that they may face in their lives.
CDA accepts referrals from any organisation involved in supporting clients and from service users themselves.
