Individual Advocacy
Representative Advocacy
- An advocate can support you to express your views and wishes about the decisions that affect your life.
- An advocate will make sure that your voice is heard and acted on.
- They can help you challenge decisions about your care and support that you disagree with.
- They can help you stand up for your rights.
- They can support with official processes if you need help to organise your personal affairs or to change something about your care or living situation.
An advocate can help with issues such as:
- Planning ahead
- Questions about next of kin
- Safeguarding concerns
- Nursing Home Support Scheme / Fair Deal
- Financial
- Legal
- Assisted Decision Making
Their work with you will always be FREE, CONFIDENTIAL and INDEPENDENT of family, service provider or systems interests.
The purpose is to ensure that your voice is listened to and your views taken into account.
You set the agenda. The advocate will only take action that you have given consent for. The advocacy plan will be agreed with you.
The advocate has no other interest than to promote, support and defend your voice and rights. It is a one-to-one professional relationship.
Sage works with and on behalf of a person with their consent. Sage uses a Consent Form signed by our client, or their representative, which gives Sage permission to act on their behalf.
Non-Instructed Advocacy
- Sage Advocacy can provide non-instructed advocacy if a person needs support but it is not possible for them to communicate their consent to it.
- We can act on this basis in order to safeguard the person’s human rights.
- If a person cannot put across their views and come to decisions, the advocate will gather information and insights to build a picture of their wishes, thoughts, beliefs and preferences in life – how they lead your life and what is important to them. Based on this we put the person at the centre of thinking about how to provide support.
- We will represent the person’s interests and support them to participate as fully as possible in decision making.
Non-Instructed Advocacy
The form below outlines Sage Advocacy’s commitments in cases of Non-Instructed Advocacy. The advocate uses it to record that instructed consent cannot be obtained; to outline the matters that support and advocacy need to be provided for; to pledge to act at all times in good faith and for the benefit of the named person; and to set out data processing conditions based on the vital interests of the individual. The form is signed and witnessed and considered for approval by Sage Advocacy’s Case Management Group, which then performs an oversight role if a case is sent forward.