Independent Specialist Advocacy in England and Wales : Recommendations for Good Practice

Abstract

The White Paper, Reforming the Mental Health Act 2000, proposed that service users who are subject to the powers of a new Mental Health Act in England and Wales should have access to independent specialist advocacy services. This report sets out what these specialist advocacy services might look like. It proposes a definition, model of service and core standards for the commissioning, management, staffing, practice, monitoring and reviewing of these services. The report is the result of a study commissioned by the Department of Health and carried out by Di Barnes and Toby Brandon of the Centre for Applied Social Studies at the University of Durham. The work for the report was undertaken between November 2000 and May 2001 and it included a Delphi Study to identify consensus on essential characteristics of mental health advocacy, visits to a range of advocacy services, meetings with advocacy networks and a study visit to the Netherlands. Throughout the study, an advisory group with representation from the major stakeholders in mental health advocacy provided expert advice. The proposals in this report arise from the premise that if new mental health legislation gives all service users subject to the powers of the legislation a right to access a specialist advocacy service, these advocacy services should: · become universally available throughout England and Wales · be provided to agreed standards · use an agreed code of practice. Therefore the report proposes clear boundaries for specialist advocacy services. It describes a distinct service for a distinct group of service users, and places specialist advocacy in the context of other advocacy provision. A code of practice and core standards are proposed.