Advocacy The principle of helping the voice of children and young people to be heard may remain constant, yet the interpretation of this principle in practice, in the exercise of rights and in access to services, will always be open to discussion. The responses to this question as tabulated above reflect the differing interpretations of the term “advocacy” in different local education authorities. For example, only one local education authority referred to Family Group Conferencing in their response and yet this service operates within several local authorities in Wales. There is similarly more than one children’s rights officer. It is important that local education authorities share a common understanding of what they mean by “advocacy services for children and young people”.
4
Who provides advocacy services for children and young people within your local authority area?
The responses to this question were as follows: Advocacy providers
Number of local authorities
SNAP Cymru
20
NSPCC
4
NYAS
3
NCH Cymru
2
Tros Gynnal
2
BILD
1
RNID
1
Citizen Advocacy
1
Spurgeons
1
NSPCC, NYAS, NCH Cymru, Tros Gynnal and Spurgeons are all advocacy providers for children and young people receiving services from local authority social services and are commissioned by the respective local authority social services. SNAP Cymru is commissioned by local education authorities to provide the Independent Parental Support service. BILD (British Institute of Learning Disabilities) and RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) provide services for specific groups of children and their parents. These are charities and their services are not commissioned by local education authorities. Many other charities such as SCOPE and RNIB Cymru also provide support for children and families. Citizen Advocacy is the only provider that would, resources permitting, assist children and young people in pursuing a complaint about the local education authority if required. Access to Advocacy Services This section is intended to elicit information about the accessibility of advocacy services.
5
To what extent is access to an advocacy service for children and young people available in the medium of Welsh?
• 10 local education authorities reported that they had bilingual leaflets available.
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