Family Rights Group :: Advocacy Service

Advocacy service

Our Advocacy service aims to support over 400 families involved with local authority children's social care services regarding care or protection issues between 2006 and 2009. The service is part funded by the Big Lottery, City Parochial and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and the London Boroughs of Enfield, Tower Hamlets, Barnet and the City of Westminster. We are continuing to seek further funding in order to support more families.

The advocacy service was initially developed and piloted in 2003 using the Protocol on Advice and Advocacy for Parents in Child Protection Cases (developed by the University of Cambridge with funding from the Department of Health) as a model. We continue to base our service on this Protocol. We are a small team of advocates with both legal and/or social work professional backgrounds.

Types of advocacy:

1. Direct advocacy

We can provide a professional advocate to support families living in London whose children are subject to child protection enquiries who meet the following criteria:

a) Asylum seeking families or families refused asylum who are living in London

b) Families living in the London Boroughs of Barnet, Enfield or Tower Hamlets or the City of Westminster who meet the following critieria:

Young parents (i.e. under 25), including care leavers
Parents who have had children removed previously, where a decision has not been made to date to instigate Care Proceedings
Parents with a Learning Disability
Parents with drug/alcohol dependency problems.

c) We will also take a small number of cases, via our advice line, from parents who meet the criteria outlined above, living outside these boroughs.

In order to avoid any conflict of interests, Family Rights Group will not represent a family member if another family member is already a client of the Advocacy team in connection with the same problem/issue.

When we provide a face to face advocate in these circumstances, the advocate will work with a parent or parents from the point that child protection enquiries begin, until the end of the first review conference.

2. Indirect and self advocacy

Indirect advocacy involves professional advocates negotiating with local authority social care services on behalf of families, via the phone, email or letter.

Self advocacy involves our professional advocates providing support to families by drafting letters setting out tailored legal advice that the family can use to make their case to local authority social care services.

We also provide information and specialist advice to agencies including disability and asylum organisations, who are providing on-going support to parents or family members.

Referrals from families and from practitioners for indirect or self advocacy should come via our advice line.

Training

We also offer a two day training course entitled, 'Safeguarding Children: Legal Framework and Parental Advocacy' for practitioners. Contact sandra@frg.org.uk for further information

Contact us:

If you are a social worker in Barnet, Enfield, Tower Hamlets or Westminster and you wish to make a referral for an advocate to attend a child protection conference with a parent, please refer to your Referral Protocol.

Otherwise all referrals should come via the Advice Line, email or letter. The Advice line is staffed by advisers and advocates. It is a free phone number, 0800 7311696. Lines are open from 10am to 3.30pm Monday-Friday.