25 Years of Independent Advocacy

It seems hard to believe looking back that Your Say is now 25years old. Conceived as an idea when I was still actively working for the Local Authority as a Social Worker/Senior Practitioner, at a time when no statutory Advocacy existed and where funding was in the gift of the Local Authority, Health Authority private and charity providers.

Your Say primarily developed to serve the needs of adults with learning disabilities - my own background is one routed firmly in learning disabilities services; secure hospitals; community hospitals; residential & day services and also as a specialist Learning Disability Social Worker. my passion then as now to ensure those most vulnerable have their voices, wishes and views heard and acted upon.

Your Say took off right from the outset and there was no shortage of referrals, good access to funding streams for creative Advocacy interventions and no shortage of skilled professionals wanting to work within the Your Say team.

With offices in central Bristol we work extensively across the old ‘Avon’ geography, branching out further afield as the uniqueness of Your Say became understood.

We worked extensively and exhaustively to support those adults with learning disabilities still residing in ‘long stay’/hospital facilities in 1999/2000, were able to move on to more community based living. This was both challenging and rewarding and I am very proud of the work that we undertook at this time. The complexity of some of these

peoples lives means that I am not surprised that 25 years later two of the men remain actively receiving support from Your Say as their lives and needs have changed over many years.

Your Say’s first referral was a parent with autism and leaning disability who was trying to understand the concerns of the local authority in respect of her child and then to navigate the Family Courts when concerns escalated. I had no idea that this work would effectively become the grounding force of the work Your Say has done for the last 25 years and reflects the largest part of our work in 2024. At no point in the last 25 years has Your Say not had at least one parent active within our case work.

So what makes Your Say differ from other Advocacy services - 25 years ago and today? I established Your Say as a business, not a charity. This was a very conscious decision and reflects the status, that I believed and still believe, Advocates need to have to be the most effective agents for change they can be. There was no formal training for Advocates in 1999 and this only became a reality some 10 years later. The history and development of Advocacy saw it aften being undertaken by volunteers and whilst the underpinning principles that John O’Brien and Wolf Wolfensberger introduced us to in 1966 remain fundamental to the work, for myself the Advocacy needed to be firmly routed as a professional role with standing and , as needed, clout!

So Your Say functions as a business - I own Your Say and have a team of Freelance Advocates who work for me alongside a small team of support staff. All the Advocates receive robust training and are DBS checked and now either hold or are working towards the national Advocacy Qualification. I think it is notable that in 25 years Your Say has only ever had to advertise for team members once - people come to Your Say to work because they like the structure and way that we work.

Being ‘in charge’ has allowed Your Say to change shape, direction, focus and size as changes in the world of Advocacy have occurred and as local and national demand for Advocacy has waxed and waned.

We are immensely proud of the work we did in B&NES for some 13 years providing a learning disability specialist Advocacy service and in supporting adults with learning disability to come together as a collective to have a real voice within the council and local communities - the B&NES Networks. For some years our team grew with the development of a CIC which employed a group of adults with learning disabilities who delivered training as well as evaluations of services from the ‘lived’ perspective.

The B&NES Networks were absorbing, creative, breathtakingly honest and also a huge amount of fun to be part of. It would be an understatement to say that when funding was withdrawn and the Network and then the specialist Advocacy came to an end it was a very real blow to us all - members included.

As already noted above we have always been actively involved in supporting those who may be considered to lack capacity and so the introduction of the Mental Capacity Act in 2005 was a key moment for us - its very clear message that capacity is not a finite state and the introduction of the IMCA role in 2006 led Your Say to begin to work actively in the IMCA role - something we continue to do to this day.

The Your Say team act as IMCA’s, Paid Representative for DOLS and Rule 1.2 Reps for Community DOLs, we also act as Litigation Friend where needed for those seeking to challenge their DOLS’s as well as Litigation Friend for those who may be otherwise unrepresented.

In 2014 the Care Act was introduced and in 2015 Your Say secured the first statutory Advocacy contact for Care Act provision in Bristol - we were instrumental in establishing the format for delivery and the scope of the service. The demand for Care Act Advocacy was huge - well beyond anyone’s expectation - and having held the contact for some 4 ½ years we eventually chose not to retender as we felt unable to deliver the service within the cost framework available.

We don’t regret this period of time at all - it widened our client base significantly and provided a whole wealth of new learning opportunities and experiences. Our cultural awareness certainly rose as to did our skills in working with a much more diverse client base.

Your Say today looks very different from 25 years ago - and yet so many things remain unchanged. Our underpinning principles and values remain unchanged; to give voice to those who need our support to be heard.

The team has changed and people have come and gone over the years - but it is testament to the work we do that so many team members have been with the service for so many years, and that even when people leave or retire they remain part of the Your Say family.

Similarly we have had a number of offices and bases - growing and downsizing as needed to accommodate the team and current practice. the pandemic taught us both how to work without a physical office base but also the absolute necessity to come together at least once a month as a whole team to share, learn and simply ‘be’ together.

The pandemic was also largely responsible for the shape of Your Say today, we made a very conscious decision in the very early days of lockdown, that for the parents we support in Court proceedings it was neither appropriate or effective to support remotely during Court hearings where decisions affecting their lives and tier children were so potentially life changing. With the support and the endorsement of the Court we worked face 2 face throughout the pandemic supporting parents wherever they were to be able to access ‘remote’ Court hearings and therefore provide them with the best possible chance of being able to engage in the process, make their own voices heard and understand the process. This took the team far and wide and opened up the geography of Your Say significantly and we are still today actively working in many of these Courts and areas. As things got back to something more ‘normal’ the tools of remote working have remained in many areas of our work and the skills, knowledge and resources that saw us through the pandemic mean that we are fully equipped to support the parents, and others we support in whatever setting is required of us.

Our skills and knowledge built and developed over the last 25 years makes Your Say a standout Advocacy service - always open to explore new ways of working as well as embracing new challenges and new ideas. The skills of the team members and the experiences they bring to the service are without a doubt our biggest asset and I am always humbled by the calibre of the team who chose to work with me and for Your Say.

It is hard to predict what the future may have in store for Your Say, there are currently no plans for us to alter or change what we are doing , but we are of course always open to new opportunities to support others to have their voices heard and rights met. Currently our work is diverse enough to hold everyone’s interest and for us to both maintain our skills and knowledge, whilst always being ready to learn and develop our individual and team practice.

I am hugely proud of Your Say and all we have achieved in the last 25 years and am so grateful to all those who have travelled the last 25 years with me as Advocates, clients, supporters or simply friends. Thank You

Kirstie Mann