0113 2470449 Fax: 0113 2470448
Advocacy for Mental Health and Dementia
office@advocacy4mhd.org.uk
Advocacy in the Community involves working with people living their own houses
or hostels and those people who attend day centres.
For many years I have subscribed to the ideal of the equality of opportunity. The role of an advocate provides, selfishly, for me, in a small way, to put principle into practice.
Historically the approach to the treatment of the mentally unwell has been isolation, marginalisation and exclusion, generally at the hand of convention and authority. Little concern was given to the needs or perceptions of the individual.
At it's basic level advocacy offers the opportunity to redress the balance for the individual and while it may be a small step, it would be hoped that the opportunity provided will develop into a journey to inclusion, self respect and the due respect of others.
Before getting a 2:1 degree in Psychology and Sociology, I worked as a Health Care Worker in a variety of care settings, including a mental health hostel and residential homes and with people with physical disabilities.
After my degree, I worked for a year in Housing Benefits and then for five years as a Field Social Worker in Leeds and as a Social Welfare Officer. In 1996, I became an advocate for people with dementia at the Advocacy Health Unit, Leeds City Council. When this folded in 1997, I transferred to LMHAG in the same role.
I wanted to become an independent advocate as I felt constrained by the bureaucracy of large organisations. I am committed to improving the overall situation for people with dementia, improving services, raising awareness and trying to ensure that a diagnosis of dementia does not result in losing your right to express your needs and concerns.
I work for 21 hours a week, juggling the challenge of being an advocate with the equal challenge of raising two small children.
I make up the much needed remainder of the other dementia post. I started doing dementia Advocacy full time in 2002 and was initially employed to represent people with dementia who were on a guardianship order.
Before advocacy I was involved in doing research for Asian women with learning disabilities. I worked as trainer, providing training for Approved Social workers in the skills of working with interpretors and trained interpretors a course on “basic mental heath” . I’m also a qualified and experienced interpretor. I speak Urdu, Punjabi and Pahari.
My time now is spent doing Advocacy 16 hours a week, I still do some training work and am involved in script writing and production. A perfect complement to Advocacy?
I am committed to Advocacy for people with dementia. It never ceases to surprise me when people assume that someone with dementia can’t give their views.
As dementia Advocate I am dedicated:
I was one of the first workers at LMHAG when we started and I am delighted to be returning to work for the organisation.
I work part-time at LMHAG and the rest of the week, I do other advocacy work in York. Apart from this, I spend as much time as I can tramping over the dales, moors and wolds of Yorkshire, and further afield, in search of fitness and inspiration.
My job is an independent advocate post, which has been set up in connection with the Leeds Personality Disorder Clinical Network. My job is to work specifically as an advocate for people who have been given this diagnosis (“Personality Disorder”), including those who are supported through the Leeds PD Clinical Network.
This is a new service, which started in Leeds in 2005 to provide better support and access to treatment for a group of people, who have often been denied help in the past, or treated poorly by mental health services.
This Network is a group of organisations (mental health, housing and probation) working together in partnership. Leeds Mental Health Advocacy Group and Self-Help Initiatives Project (SHIP) at Leeds Mind are in this partnership.
Many of us take exception to this label. It is a disputed diagnosis. Even among professionals there is a lot of disagreement about how valid or meaningful it is whether “it” can be treated, and who should be given the diagnosis.
Many people are very unhappy about being given the label of “Personality Disorder” and feel that it has had a negative impact on their lives. Many also do not know they have received the diagnosis
As an advocate, I accept the each person will have their own feelings about being described as having “Personality Disorder”. My priority is to work on the basis of how they see their life and their needs in their own terms, without letting this label get in the way.
I work with people from the Asian Community both in the community and in the hospitals. Part of my work is raising the awareness of advocacy and how it can help people. Having an Asian background myself, I am aware of how the problems of language, culture and differing attitudes to mental health can add to the difficulty in obtaining the appropriate treatment. In particular, the stigma attached to mental health in this community often makes it hard to ask for help.
A Diploma in Health and Social Welfare gave me an initial grounding and the confidence to work as a mental health worker in High Royds Hospital. I have also worked as an advisor at the CAB and as an interpreter for LITS. Having lived in Europe, Asia and Africa, I am able to communicate in English, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and Swahili.
I think it easier for my clients to feel at ease knowing that I understand their culture and can speak their language. By listening to them and providing advocacy, they can feel valued and empowered to rebuild their lives.
I'm a Hospital Advocate both in Mental Health Hospitals and in the Community. My primary responsibilities are to the African and African Caribbean people with mental health difficulties. Previous work has included running a pilot project at Newsam Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) managed initially by Black Mental Health Forum.
I also worked at Chapeltown Citizens Advice Bureau (CCAB) as a Mental Health Advice Case Worker for the past 5 years and are still working with both organizations up to now. Both jobs are part time and they compliment each other just fine. I also worked over 10 years as a volunteer with African and African Caribbean organizations.
After graduating with a BA in Economics and Public Policy at the Metropolitan University and with the wealth of knowledge acquired through working and living in the UK for 17 years and studying here, I strongly believe that I have got the better of the two cultures. I can work with anybody regardless of their race, religion, or social background. However, my priority is for African and African Caribbean people with mental health difficulties. I acknowledge that there is a lack of awareness and understanding about cultural needs of the African and the African Caribbean people, they lack information about the services available to them, and they have inadequate or no access to mainstream services as well as lacking the knowledge about their rights.
My findings indicate that my client group have been overlooked by both professionals and services providers at the point of service delivery. Cultural needs and care are always ignored. Cultural attitudes are often based on fear and misunderstanding which means that different types of mental illness are not recognized. In lumping them together, public attitudes stigmatize and stereotype individuals in these communities, hence exposing them to prejudice and discrimination.
This failure to properly understand the range of difficulties faced by African and African Caribbean people with mental health difficulties is institutionalized in the mental health service, the benefit system, at work, and the society at large. In addition to that there is insufficient support in the community across statutory and voluntary sectors to help with their problems. The need for advocacy support arises because of the nature of the illness that renders individuals unable to manage. The illness causes them to withdraw socially because of the difficulties in communication and being understood which reinforces the isolation their illness creates. As Hospital Advocates, we have so much to offer. Our service is culturally sensitive, client centred and we voice our client's concerns. We also represent their interest and articulate these in a coherent way.