What we do

We provide a free, independent and confidential service to adults in need of advocacy support in Sheffield.

We aim to:

Provide you with clear and accessible information about your options and services available to you
Support you to have your say about your own care and to empower you to express your wishes
Support you in making informed decisions based on a clear understanding of your options
Support you to be fully involved in decisions taken for you by professionals “No decision about me, without me”
Ensure your human rights are protected and upheld
Gather information about social policy issues in partnership with you, and campaign locally to effect change

Statutory Advocacy

Sheffield Advocacy Hub is the provider in Sheffield for statutory advocacy. If people are eligible, they have a legal right to these types of advocacy. Each type has different eligibility criteria. We can support with working out which type(s) of advocacy we can offer.

Care Act Advocacy

The Care Act 2014 means local authorities must provide extra independent advocacy for a wide range of people.

Councils must involve people in assessments about their care and support and in planning and checking their care and support.

The Care Act says that councils must think about if a person needs independent
advocacy to support them to be involved for things like:

When they are carrying out an assessment of an adult to see what care and support they might need (an adult’s needs assessment)

When they are carrying out an assessment to see if someone who provides care for someone else needs support (a carer’s assessment)

When they are carrying out an assessment of a child who is becoming an adult to see what care and support they might need (a child’s needs assessment)

When they are writing what is in an adult’s care plan or checking what is in it

When they are carrying out a safeguarding enquiry or a safeguarding adults review

When the council is involving the person with any of these things they must think
about whether the person would find it very difficult to:

Understand information about their care and support

Remember information

Use the information

Communicate their views or feelings

If the council think that a person would find it very difficult to do any of these things they must make sure that there is someone to support them.

They will look first at whether there is a family member or a friend who can help them take part. This person is called “an appropriate individual”.

If not, the council must arrange an independent advocate to support them.

Citizens Advice Sheffield Advocacy Service provide Care Act Advocacy in Sheffield.

For more information on the Care Act see:

Care Act – Easy Read information

Social Care Institute for Excellence

DoLS RPR

Sometimes people who have been assessed to lack the mental capacity to decide about their care and where they live are legally ‘deprived of their liberty’. This means the person is not free to leave where they are living, and are constantly supervised – for instance by a carer, support worker or a nurse.

In this situation, the local authority (know as the Supervisory Body) is legally required to provide an independent check to make sure that the person is only restricted enough to keep them safe and that this is in their best interests. These are known as the ‘Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards’ or DoLS.

DoLS are intended to safeguard the person’s human rights, particularly the right to liberty, but also the right to a private and family life and their rights in general.

If the Supervisory Body is carrying out an assessment for DoLS, they may involve an IMCA to get an independent opinion on the person’s wishes and feelings.

If the Supervisory Body does agree to authorise the deprivation of liberty, they must also appoint a representative for the person (known as the Relevant Person’s Representative). This can be a family member or friend, or sometimes can be an advocate acting as a paid representative.

The representative’s role is to visit regularly, make sure that the carers are acting in the person’s best interests, and if necessary ask the Supervisory Body to review their decision. The representative can also apply to the Court of Protection to ask the Court to review the deprivation of liberty on the person’s behalf.

Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA)

An IMCA is an independent advocate who must be appointed to support a person in certain situations.

This is usually when the person has been assessed as lacking the mental capacity to take particular kinds of decision, such as a long term move, or when serious medical treatment may be required.

It can also apply in Adult Safeguarding enquiries, care reviews, and when someone is being ‘deprived of their liberty’ for their own good (for example, a person in a care home where it would not be safe for them to be free to leave when they wish).

IMCAs find out as much as possible about what the person wants, and make sure that this is taken into account by the professional making the decision

IMCAs also ensure that the professionals involved are following the Mental Capacity Act 2005 correctly, to safeguard the person’s rights

IMCAs can access the person’s health and social care records to gather information about the person’s care and treatment to use to support the person

Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA)

Advocacy has been available to support patients in many mental health services for many years, but from 1 April 2009 under provisions introduced by the Mental Health Act 2007, qualifying patients in England have a legal right to access to help from an Independent Mental Health Advocate (IMHA). IMHAs are an important safeguard that can help and support patients to understand and exercise their legal rights.

What is the role of the IMHA?

The IMHA can help you to obtain information and understand:

Your rights under the Mental Health Act.
The rights which other people (e.g. nearest relatives) have.
Any medical treatment you are receiving or might be given.
The reasons for that treatment or proposed treatment.

An IMHA can also help you with:

Making a complaint.
Accessing other support and services.

NHS Complaints Advocacy

Our advocates can provide information on the complaints process, and if necessary, support you to make your complaint.

Our support is free, confidential and independent of the NHS and we can support any adult living in Sheffield. We can also support to complain on another person’s behalf e.g. a relative. We will always seek to empower individuals to self advocate as much as possible so we have made a Self Help Information Pack to enable people to raise issues independently and understand the process.

Generic Advocacy

Sheffield Advocacy Hub also has funding for some non-statutory advocacy. This means that in some circumstances, we can support as an advocate despite there being no legal requirement for an advocate to be present. This is always with the consent of the individual.

d/Deaf Advocacy (BSL)

We have a BSL using advocate who can support Deaf adults living in Sheffield. Our service can support to understand and get accessible information, and work with a person to get their views across when they have a particular issue. If you are Deaf and would like support with an issue, please get in contact with us to see if we can offer advocacy.

Generic Health Advocacy

Our partner within Sheffield Advocacy Hub, Disability Sheffield, provides advocacy for people with a disability or health condition who needs support with a health or social care related issue.

People do not need to have a diagnosis of disability but the funding is only for adults who live in Sheffield.

Generic Health Advocates support people to get their voices heard, understand information relating to a health issue, and make their own informed decisions. Examples of issues include getting your views heard with your GP on a change of medication, or in getting a diagnosis, or going to the council to get Equipment and Adaptations for your home, or support to get your voice heard in care planning in a health funded package of care.

Generic Learning Disability Advocacy

Sheffield Advocacy Hub can support people with a diagnosed learning disability in issues relating to health and social care. This could be support through a care needs assessment, or support to access health care services or it could be supporting a parent through child protection proceedings as well as other issues.

Generic Mental Health Advocacy

This service is for adults (aged over 16 years) who either need to access mental health services in Sheffield, or who are already using those services. It aims to empower people to put forward their views about their needs and priorities for their own wellbeing.

This includes accessing mental health care through your GP, Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT), and other services such as IAPT (Counselling and Psychological Therapies eg CBT) and Day Services. We can support you accessing and using services provided by the NHS, Sheffield City Council, Voluntary Sector and private providers.

It is also available for patients in hospital who are not entitled to the IMHA service, that is those who have not been detained under the Mental Health Act, known as informal or voluntary patients.

Parental Advocacy

Our advocates can support parents with a disability or health condition who are going through child protection proceedings. This is a new part of our remit, and is wider than previously as it is for all parents with a disability or health condition. We can support you to understand information, get your voice heard, and make your own informed decisions in these processes.

Becton CAMHS Generic Health Advocacy

Our advocates can support children and young people to have their views listened to and taken into account by the professionals responsible for their care, ensure their rights are protected and support them to speak up for themselves.

We provide advocacy to the children & young people who are patients at Becton Hospital. The young people range in age from 8 – 17 years. We provide an IMHA service to those detained under the Mental Health Act and Generic advocacy for informal patients. We also provide separate advocacy for parents who have children at Becton.

Riverdale Generic Mental Health Advocacy

We provide advocacy to the Adult & Adolescent units at Riverdale Grange Eating disorder hospital. We provide an IMHA service to those who are detained under the MH Act and generic advocacy to patients who are informal.

Our advocates can support patients at Riverdale to understand their options, get their voice heard in their care and treatment and make their own informed decisions.

FAQs

Click on any question that you can see below and the answer should drop down. If you have other questions, please do get in contact with us!

An advocate is a person who empowers someone who has a health and social care related issue to have their voice heard. Advocates are trained to know about the health and social care systems. They are trained in people's rights, and their focus is to enable you, the individual, to have a voice and a say in their own lives. They might help you research information, look through options, help you communicate with other professionals, and walk through the process with you. They are not there to judge or have their own opinion, but rather to champion your views and rights. You can see more on our "What is advocacy?" page.

Unfortunately, our advocacy service can not support with benefits or PIP applications. Our colleagues in the Advice service may be able to give you some information and/or advice around what to do regarding your benefits. You can call them on 0808 278 7820. If you call our number, we will not be able to help you and will instead signpost you back to the Advice number as it is a separate service to us.

We are an issue based advocacy service. You come to us with a particular issue. We support you with the issue, and when the issue is resolved or there's nothing more we can do, then we close the case. You can come back to us in future if there is a new issue and we'll open a new case.

We work one to one with an individual. We don't work with a whole family. It may be that we work with an individual who gets support from their family (or friends) and want us to talk to them. We will talk to family and friends if asked or if that would be in the person's best interest. Our focus is always on the individual's views and wishes as this is our role.

Most of our advocacy types restrict our advocacy work to adults. However, Independent Mental Capacity Advocates as well as our Generic Mental Health Advocates support people aged 16 and above, Care Act Advocates can support those aged 16 and above to transition from Children's to Adults Social Services, and we can support inpatients of the Becton Centre (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and their families. There is no age limit for IMHA cases so anyone can access advocacy if eligible for an IMHA. If you want to chat through whether we can support someone, please do get in touch.

We are a confidential service. We store your personal information in a secure and private place that only our Advocacy Hub team have access to. When we are instructed by you, we follow what you want regarding your data. We will only share your personal details if you give consent, unless you or someone else is in danger. If we have to share information for safety reasons, we will only share what is necessary. When you can't instruct us (don't have capacity/ understanding of the issue we're helping you with), we will only share the information necessary with the people who need it so we can support you with your issue. For example, if we're supporting with a deprivation of liberty, we would share information about you with the team in the council (DoLS team) who are responsible for keeping you safe. Please do tell us if there is a particular person that you don't want information shared with so that we are aware of any risks to your safety/ information.

No, our advocacy service is a free service. You don't pay us anything. We get our funding from various places including the council and health services, but we are independent from these services. We work separately to them.

Advocates support you to make your own decisions as much as possible. They will give you information, support you to think of pros and cons of a decision, and to look into options. An advocate does not make decisions for the people they support. They encourage independence, self advocacy and empower the people they work with.

In some situations, you may have a statutory (legal) right to advocacy support. We also have some funding so we can help people even though they don't have a legal right to advocacy (generic advocacy). This all depends on the situation you're in, and what type of advocacy you qualify for. You can look at our "What we do" page for more information on the types of advocacy, or give us a call to chat through your situation.

Contact us

You can contact us to ask a question about our service, about advocacy, to get information or to put in a referral.

Make a referral

Referrals

If you need an advocate for yourself, friends or family

Email us

We will aim to respond within 3 working days. You can also request a call back.

Speak to us

Call us

You can speak to us to put in a referral or ask a question

Access points

At the moment, we can only only accept referrals by phone or email. We are developing access points which we hope will increase access to our services. This space will be updated when they are available.