• Where am I?
• Home »
• In Your Area »
• Kent

Advocacy in Kent

From 1st April, VoiceAbility Kent will no longer be providing professional advocacy in the area. However, because of our local knowledge and understanding of the different challenges faced by people in Kent, we hope to continue working with people in different ways.

---

Professional advocacy

Professional advocates in Kent work with people with learning disabilities may have specific issues getting heard or making changes in their lives.

Advocates work with people on many issues including making their wishes known when there are big changes in their lives.

What Happens Now?

Although VoiceAbility are no longer providing professional advocacy in Kent, this work is continuing and anyone wishing to access this service can continue to do so. Find out more details on how to access the advocacy service by visiting www.advocacyforall.org.uk.

If you have been using the advocacy service, don’t worry, you will still be supported. Someone from Advocacy for All will contact you shortly.

To find out about the difference we have made in Kent over the last three months, read our Kent Advocacy Report - October to December 2011

What have people said about the Kent Advocates?

“I feel better when I speak to you because you listen and don’t tell me what to do”

“Thank you so much for all the help you have given me over the years we have worked together.  You are a great person to work with.  You help lots of people and you have helped me so much! It has been a pleasure working with you.”

Consultation work

Kent County Council asked VoiceAbility to work with them to understand the views of people who used the local day centre in Thanet. The consultation was about how to change and improve the way the Council delivered services in the future so that people have a wider range of choice in with what they want to do during days, evenings and weekends. They wanted people in Kent to have more control, flexible support and opportunity to lead a full and meaningful person centred life within their local community.

The aims of the consultation were:

• For each person who used the current service to independently say what they wanted without any coercion from anyone else. 
• To listen to and respect each person
• To keep the centre management informed of any concerns that current service users had so they could be addressed quickly

VoiceAbility spoke with 93 people who used the day centre to really understand what they wanted and what their fears were:

This type of Advocacy was able to ensure that people’s concerns were listened to; for example, where concerns were raised about how people using the current service would be able to get to the new proposed services, information was presented by the centre management so people knew they didn’t have to worry.

Without advocacy people would have continued to worry and not known how to tell anyone.

The old day centre isn’t going to continue as it was, and the new services will be designed with the results of VoiceAbility’s consultation kept at the centre of decisions.

---

The Medway Service

We offer One2One issue based advocacy to people who are funded by Medway. We accept referrals but individuals must then be assessed by the Local Authority.

The service supports adults to have a voice in creating positive changes in their life.  You can find out more about our Medway services on our dedicated Medway page.