A day in the life of an advocate can look like any other job – start the day by checking your phone and emails, update the case recording system and write reports or complete monitoring information. What makes it different than other jobs is that we work at your pace, building a relationship with you in the way that you want. Sometimes that means we have text conversations, or we meet in your home, or we go to a meeting with you so that people listen to what you have got to say.
We have been working collaboratively with local advocacy organisations since the 1990s. The specialist advocacy organisations in Hampshire quickly realised we could give a louder voice to the people we worked with by working together, and formed Hampshire Advocacy Reference Group or HARG. The consortium membership changed over the years to include other disabled people’s groups and larger mental health charities who were also providing advocacy. We currently work in partnership with Choices Advocacy, as well as Basingstoke Voluntary Services who provide ‘back office support’ and office space.