Independent Advocacy Services

Independent Advocacy means supporting a person to understand information, express their needs and wishes, secure their rights and represent their interests if they might have substantial difficulty doing so themselves. They help individuals understand their options, make informed decisions, and express their wishes, whether it's in relation to care planning, assessments, or challenging decisions. The Service enables people with physical or learning disabilities, older people, Carers, those with mental health needs to make informed choices and decisions about their own wellbeing and social care.

Independent advocates help people to access information and services and to explore their options. Advocates deliver services independent of West Northamptonshire Council and on an impartial basis. The independent advocate aims to support people in a direct and empowering way by providing them with the necessary information to make their own informed decision.

Advocacy promotes equality, social justice, social inclusion and human rights. The advocacy service in WNC will require advocates to be trained in all the different types of advocacy, to enable a seamless advocacy service and prevent a person having to tell their story repetitively to different advocates, the same advocate should provide support in multiple advocate roles, provided they are trained and qualified to do so. WNC commissions Independent Statutory Advocacy to deliver the following types of advocacy: Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) including Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), and Relevant Person's Paid Representatives (RPPR) Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) Independent Health Complaints Advocacy (IHCA) Independent Care Act Advocacy (ICAA) Rule 1.2 Representative