Advocacy

Read how POhWER can support Advocacy during Covid-19

The council supports people to be as involved as they can in Adult Social Care processes especially in social care decisions that affect them.

The council will arrange an Independent Care Act Advocate to support and represent anyone who is:

• likely to have substantial difficulty in taking part in their assessment, planning their care and support, revising their support plan or in enquiries about abuse or neglect, and
• has no-one appropriate to support and represent them  

Advocates can support and help people to make their views known if they:

• find it hard to understand, retain and use important information or
• have trouble communicating their views, wishes and feelings, or making decisions.

An organisation called POhWER provides various types of independent advocacy throughout Gloucestershire on behalf of the council. POhWER also provides information and advice to people who want to make their own views known to Adult Social Care or would like to support and represent others to do so.

We want your views to help improve our advocacy services

Gloucestershire County Council wants your help to reshape its advocacy programme to best suit the needs of its users.

Some people can find it difficult to tell others what they think or feel, this can be due to a disability, protected characteristic or incapacity temporary or permanent. 

The council pays for advocacy services, which gives these individuals a person, called an advocate, to represent their interests on their behalf.

The way advocacy works in the county is being reimagined, and the council wants your views on how the service can be improved.

In order to do this, Gloucestershire County Council wants to hear about the experiences of people who use independent advocacy services in order to improve the service.

These people are invited to complete short questionnaire which will help to shape the future of advocacy in Gloucestershire.

The survey can be found at https://haveyoursaygloucestershire.uk.engagementhq.com/statutory-adults-advocacy-services. The survey will close on Monday, 1 November, 2021, at 5pm.