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Advocacy For All
Advocacy for All is a locally rooted advocacy organisation with a strong history, that exists to give people a voice through one to one advocacy and self-advocacy groups. We believe that Bigger Voices = Better Lives. Our approach is person-centred, empowering and rights focused. We place a strong value on supporting people to be as independent as possible. We believe that being fair, valuing diversity and involving people are extremely important.
These are our values:
– The quality of our services is important to us and we work hard to make sure that our organisation is the best that it can be.
– We have professional staff and volunteers who are approachable, friendly and caring, passionate and inclusive.
– We work with vulnerable people to give them bigger voices so that they can have better lives. Our funding comes from a variety of Local Authority contracts, external grants and donations.
How does your organisation contribute to preventing suicide and supporting those affected by it?
As an independent advocacy organisation we support individuals to have their voices heard. The majority of our work is with vulnerable adults and neurodivergent populations: promoting independence and enabling access to and understanding of appropriate support.
We have a strong commitment to safeguarding the health of those we work with. This includes building services and training staff to be aware of the risks of suicide and self-harm. We aim to provide a safe space for these topics to be discussed and managed effectively.
Our crisis alternatives service, the Touch Base Project, offers support for adults living in Kent and Medway who have a diagnosis of, or are awaiting assessment for, autism or Asperger’s.
What are your current priorities?
We are aiming to build suicide awareness and prevention more firmly into our everyday operations across the organisation. This includes training and carefully considering safeguarding pathways.
We aim to be one of the leading organisations which promotes the wellbeing of neurodivergent individuals and those with learning disabilities in the South East.
What challenges are you currently facing?
As a charitable organisation, we have a minimal budget for training. We are always looking for suitable training swaps, which can strengthen the knowledge base of both groups. We can arrange Autism Awareness training, in exchange for similar training.
Like many, we are seeing exceptionally high amounts of mental health need amongst our members as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.