Turning advocacy recommendations into action

In 2023 we published an independent Review of Advocacy for people with learning disabilities and autistic people in mental health settings. The report was commissioned by NHS England and shared a list of recommendations on how independent advocacy can be improved.

We have now been commissioned by NHS England to develop a range of tools and resources that address some of the recommendations.

This includes:

• Developing guidance and best practice for hospitals, commissioners, and advocacy providers.
• Setting up a framework for a continued professional development (CPD) programme for advocates.
• Creating a set of standards around the training, qualifications and supervision advocates should have.
• Designing a process to check that advocates have the right training, qualifications and support.

We’re delighted to be working alongside People First Independent Advocacy to design and develop these tools and resources.

Get involved

We’re hosting some focus groups to find out what people think. We want to learn what will be the most useful things to include and how we develop that as an online resource.

If you’d like to input into what goes into these tools and resources, we’d love to hear from you.

Focus groups for advocates and advocacy managers to explore ideas for content to shape guidance, a CPD resource, standards for training and supervision and look at how advocates could evidence compliance.

• Tuesday 19 March, 1pm-2.30pm
• Wednesday 20 March, 1pm-2.30pm

Focus groups for hospitals, commissioners and providers to explore CPD, what the guidance should include and what would be a useful structure.

• Tuesday 19 March, 10am-11.30am, for staff from mental health, learning disability and autism specialist hospitals
• Wednesday 20 March, 10am-11.30am, for commissioners of independent advocacy

All focus groups will be online, on Microsoft Teams, and last for an hour and a half.

Register here to join a focus group.