Lisa’s story: ‘Becoming a VoiceAbility advocate is the best decision I’ve ever made’
Meet Lisa, who swapped the public sector for the third sector when she started her advocacy career with VoiceAbility last year.
After 14 years working for local authorities in England and a short stint in the private sector, Lisa became an advocate for VoiceAbility in Cheshire in July 2024.
The 34-year-old spoke to us about her role — which includes statutory advocacy under the Care Act, Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act — and why she would recommend it as a career.

Advocate Lisa, who outside of work loves spending time with her dogs Guacamole and Peanut and going for hikes
How did you come across advocacy?
“I’ve done social work, I’ve done commissioning including for people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), I’ve done residential work for children and adults, management, and been a support worker for adults with disabilities.
“Mental health is also a massive part of my life personally and professionally. It’s always been an area of interest and expertise, and I personally have a mental health diagnosis.”
Why did you decide to become an advocate?
“I’ve always been interested in advocacy and known about it through my previous roles and experiences.
“I have always wanted to be the person that I didn’t have when I needed it and to be the person that others should have when they need it.
“It doesn’t matter who you are and where you’re from. You should have that unwavering support that an advocate can provide.
“And at a time where, across the world and systems, voices aren’t really heard or listened to, it’s one of the most important things you can do.
The time was right for me last year so I saw VoiceAbility’s advert and went for it. And it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
Talk to us about what a day can look like for you as an advocate
“So a typical day can be quite different, but it will generally start by making sure that there’s nothing new or urgent in the morning that I need to attend to.
“I always give myself like half an hour to an hour in the morning to just check over things because things can change so rapidly — someone could be in a different hospital for example.
I am hands on, so face to face visits will always be my priority in my day.
I’m always out visiting people, whether that’s in a care home, in the community or in a hospital.
And then I have to do the boring bit which is writing it all up. So I do admin – that does happen!
“But for me, the typical day of an advocate is meeting such a wide range of people with such interesting experiences to learn about. They all have their own different stories and they all have their own different needs.
“My day is about changing what is important to them, which can vary from person to person. So it can be ‘I want an extra bottle of Coke and they won’t give me it’ or it can be ‘Hey, I don’t like these meds’.
“You spend your day putting things right, trying to help someone and creating good outcomes for people.
“It doesn’t always go 100% perfect, but that’s how we learn and sometimes that’s out of our control. But what you can do is show up and do the best you can for that person.
“It may sound a little cliché, but you can be a voice for the voiceless. When people ask what I do I always laugh and say ‘be gobby for a living!’”
Could you tell me about an example of your advocacy work which means the most to you/you are most proud of?
“So 1 person I worked with had quite advanced dementia, and they were extremely vulnerable as a result of that as they could not verbally communicate and were not mobile.
“They became physically unwell while on a mental health ward and got transferred over to the main hospital’s A&E at the weekend.
“I came in on the Monday to learn that, despite all their complex needs and being very, very poorly, they’d been on a trolley for 48 hours. They’d had their personal care attended to in the middle of a corridor. They’d had an enema in the middle of a corridor.
“I raised significant safeguarding concerns and that afternoon they were moved to a hospital ward with a proper bed. And they got better.
“But without an advocate there, that person’s outcome would have been entirely different.
Sometimes people don’t realise how important their role as an advocate is, and they might think it’s ‘just’ expressing someone’s views. But it can be the difference between life and death on some days.
“That outcome that we got for them to be looked after and safeguarded in that way was incredible.
“Unfortunately a couple of months later I had to raise another safeguarding concern about the same person relating to food and fluid intake.
“As a result, the hospital is changing the way it records certain day-to-day behaviours and the way patients with dementia are cared for.
“And that’s what you want, isn’t it? Amazing outcomes.”
What is the best thing a client has said about you as an advocate?
“I think the best thing that someone has said to me is that for the first time in their life, certainly their adult life, they felt seen, heard, understood.
“And kind of in control of what was happening to them — that they had a part in everything that was going on.”
What happened?
“They’d always been ‘marked’ as violent and ended up in secure wards or psychiatric intensive care units.
“And people only ever saw a young, violent male instead of seeing the child inside, who had lived a very, very traumatic life.
“It’s like as soon as that person turned 18, they were no longer a traumatised child and he just became a violent adult in their eyes.
“I always say every behaviour is a form of communication. And for the first time, people understood that there was more to his mental health, his drug use and his responses to behaviour.
“People started understanding that actually what he was doing was trying to communicate. It wasn’t always in the best way, but he was doing it the only way he knew how.
“So having someone there to communicate for him in a way that professionals understood was what was so successful for him in the end.
“And he’s having overnight leave at the moment and he’s doing really well.
“After a significant series of letdowns from different agencies to feel like they’d finally cracked it was, yeah, a nice one.”
And how does that feel?
“I think the most amazing thing is for someone to be able to be themselves and feel like someone gets that and can represent that properly.
So to hear that they felt I represented them well and accurately was a really good feeling.
“It feels great, and it’s very rewarding. And I suppose the biggest thing is being able to say bye to someone or end an advocacy chapter and be at peace with everything that you’ve done — it’s the best feeling.
“I feel real peace when someone has been able to move to the next stage, made progress or has had a good outcome.
“You get that little bit of hope that actually life might be a little bit better for them moving forward because they’ve had someone show up for them. So that’s nice.”