Care Advocacy

Supporting individuals with complex conditions to be fully involved in their care assessments.

Care Advocacy Form

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Our care advocacy service is for individuals in receipt of significant care packages with complex conditions that impact their capacity to make complicated decisions. These include learning disabilities, brain injuries, mental health disorders or developmental disabilities which affect how people communicate and interact with the world, such as autism.

Whilst the UK Care Act is not replicated in Jersey law, local service providers wish to follow best practice by embracing the fundamental principle that “everyone in care is a human being with wants and needs.”

Our referral criteria

Our care advocate can help with the following:

• A needs assessment
• Preparation of a care or support plan
• Support with accommodation needs
• A review of a care or support plan
• A safeguarding enquiry
• A safeguarding adult review

IF the individual will have substantial difficulty being involved without support AND there are no appropriate, able and willing family or friends to support their active involvement.

Definitions

1. Substantial difficulty

Statutory service providers must consider whether the person is likely to have substantial difficulty in engaging with the care and support process. The Capacity and Self Determination law defines four areas where people may experience substantial difficulty. These are:

• understanding relevant information
• retaining information
• using or weighing information
• communicating views, wishes and feelings.

1. Who is an ‘appropriate individual’ to assist a person’s involvement?

In general, a person who has substantial difficulty in being involved in their assessment, plan or review, will only become eligible for an independent care advocate where there is no one else appropriate to support their involvement. This could be because they do not have any family members or friends who:

• know them very well
• agree to offer this support
• are able to offer this support (for instance they themselves could have learning difficulties or dementia which prevents them from offering support)
• are appropriate (for instance they are suspected of abusing the person)
• are able to help the person put forward their view (for instance they have strong views on what the decision should be and do not support the person to express their aspirations).

The main thing to consider is whether the ‘appropriate individual’ would be able to facilitate the person’s active involvement in the process. With the appropriate individual’s support, would the person be able to be an active partner in the process and be involved in decisions made about them and their care and support? It is not sufficient to know the person well or to love them deeply – the role of the appropriate individual is to support the person’s active involvement with the H&SS processes. Some people will not be able to fulfil this role easily, for instance:

• a family member who lives at a distance and who only has occasional contact with the person; or
• a partner who also finds it difficult to understand the H&SS processes.

The appropriate individual cannot be:

• already providing care or treatment to the person in a professional capacity or on a paid basis
• someone the person does not want to support them
• someone who is unlikely to be able to, or available to, adequately support the person’s involvement
• someone implicated in an enquiry into abuse or neglect or who has been judged by a safeguarding adult review to have failed to prevent abuse or neglect

How we work

We will meet with our client and seek to engage as far as possible, using a range of communication methods. We may also consult with others including family, friends and care providers may be in a position to comment on our client’s wishes, beliefs or values.

Our advocate will attend meetings with or on behalf of our client, speak up for them, raise concerns and challenge where necessary to ensure our client remains at the centre of the decision-making process. We will ensure they feel that their views are being accurately represented throughout the process.