Speaking up about advocacy: findings from a partnership research project

Abstract

Accessible summary • Our research team is made up of people with learning disabilities and people without learning disabilities. We looked at what advocacy support people with learning disabilities and their families need. Advocacy is about speaking up for yourself and your rights or speaking up for other people. • We found out that some people are confused about the different types of advocacy. Some ways that advocacy could be improved are: ○ by having more information about what support there is o by increasing choice and control in people’s lives ○ by changing the way services think ○ by having advocates who do not work for services and who have time to get to know a person well • This research is important as it has been carried out by people with learning disabilities. Other places probably have similar issues. Summary This article describes a partnership research project carried out by a research team consisting of people with learning disabilities and people without learning disabilities. The research explored people’s understandings of advocacy and identified gaps in advocacy provision for people with learning disabilities and their families. Four focus groups were conducted with different stakeholders: people with learning disabilities, family carers, direct support workers and service managers and commissioners. The findings are organised under the following themes: understandings of advocacy, sources of advocacy, need for advocacy, barriers to advocacy and other influences on advocacy.