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Advocacy in social work

发布时间:2017-03-15
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Title: Social work practice.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using advocacy, (being an

advocate) in social work practice:

Introduction

This assignment will discuss the pros and cons of advocacy in social work practice. It will begin with a description and evaluation of the concept of advocacy. It will then, with reference to a specific case, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using advocacy in social work practice.

Advocacy

Advocacy is a way of speaking up, usually on behalf of others. Advocacy involves supporting and enabling people. It allows them to express their concerns and their views and to indicate the types of services and information that they require. An advocate’s job is to defend and promote the rights and responsibilities of service users and help them explore their choices and options [1]

Since the 1960s there has been a growing advocacy movement in Britain. The use of advocacy is becoming more evident in health and in the area of social work practice. This is largely due to the fact of recent discourses which favours the concepts of rights and of equality in services. Widely conceived, advocacy is concerned with the protection and enhancement of people’s rights and making sure that they have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. Good advocacy should result in a person’s own wishes and needs being represented rather than what others might deem to be in that person’s best interests. A good advocate will, as far as is possible, represent the human rights of those who may be considered ‘vulnerable’ in society. The concept of rights in this instance is as it relates to the European Bill of Human Rights 1998 which refers to the intrinsic worth of each individual person and maintains that in society, human beings have both rights and responsibilities. It is difficult to give a definition of rights and responsibilities without some way of ensuring that these are fulfilled. Everyone has the right to be protected from abuse and to be treated with respect. An agenda of advocacy, rights and responsibilities means that people are made more aware of the options open to them and any services to which they may be entitled. In knowing what is on offer, and knowing that if necessary they have someone to plead their case, people feel empowered, someone has made their voices heard and in this way they are able to exercise their citizen’s rights. Thus Quinn et al (2003) have argued that:

Information, advice and advocacy are services in their

own right. They are also fundamental in enabling…

people to receive the services they require.(Quinn et al., 2003, p. 3)

The purpose of advocacy is to help people make informed choices and so the advocate has the responsibility of explaining all the options available and what the consequences of certain choices might be. The reason that an advocate should be independent of whoever is providing the services is to avoid undue pressure on the advocate. The advocate should only need to be dealing with the person they are representing and with their wishes, not the desires of an organisation to persuade an individual to accept a particular service. Advocacy is, therefore,

a device to influence the balance of the needs/rights of this group in favour of the needs/rights of individuals, especially those on the social margins (Brandon, 1995 quoted in Bateman, 2000:17).

Wolfensberger (1977) said that is useful to see the advocates role in two ways, one as a champion helping to empower and inform them and to access services and secondly the advocate should be a warm and caring, though dispassionate, friend. Ivers (1994) supports this view and says that when a person is feeling disempowered and marginalized then a caring and considerate friend can make things easier to cope with.

Uses of Advocacy

Bateman (2000) makes a distinction between ‘bounded’ and ‘unbounded’ problems, he maintains that advocacy can be used in either case. .Bounded problems are easily identifiable and there is usually a procedure that the advocate can follow, for example, speaking on behalf of someone involved in a social security dispute. Unbounded problems are not so clearly defined. They may need the ongoing involvement of the advocate who will carry out negotiations until a satisfactory conclusion is reached. Advocacy means professionals and service users working together. This is particularly relevant given current police and the drive to encourage greater user participation in the decision making process in health and social care. There is an increasing use of advocacy in agencies working with older people. Age Concern for example highlights the usefulness of advocacy particularly in family concerns for their welfare where the older person’s rights may get overlooked. Advocacy is also becoming more popular in the mental health arena where an advocate can speak on behalf of someone who may not be able to speak for themselves. Social work and advocacy make good partners because each role requires very similar types of skills (Bateman, 2000). A central social work ethic is the struggle for justice for those who are marginalized in society or less fortunate than the majority. Advocacy aims to promote access and justice for service users by enabling them to make choices (Henderson and Pochin, 2001). However, being an advocate and a social worker can be problematic. As previously mentioned an advocate should be entirely independent and unbiased, an advocate’s loyalty is to the person on whose behalf they are speaking. Social workers on the other hand may have divided loyalties, they are not independent because they have a responsibility to the agency for which they work and to their local authority. This makes it problematic if, as an advocate, they may need to challenge the decisions of the agency and/or the local authority (Brandon, 2000).

Dilemmas for Social Work Advocates

Henley (2003) points out that sometimes social workers can find themselves engaged in advocacy for an individual against a group while the group themselves may also be involved in promoting their own concerns. This leaves the social worker having to balance the needs of the individual against the group, which is a problem because the group may also need empowering. Strictly speaking an advocate is an individual who is speaking for a particular individual or group and whatever unfairnesses they may encounter the advocate’s duty is to the person or group for whom they are taking the advocate’s role. Henley (2003) found herself in just such a position she was a social worker/advocate working on behalf of an individual’s tenancy rights, trying to empower that individual when she came into conflict with the tenants as a group, who were working to empower themselves. As Bateman (2000) has pointed out situations where an advocate is working to empower an individual but where the advocate also works in partnership with the group, present a clear dilemma for the social worker/advocate. Henderson and Pochin (2001) suggest that under such circumstances the social worker may need to refer the case to an independent advocate who would not be encumbered by the partnership role and the divided loyalties that it brings with it. .

The family that Henley (2003) was working with did not feel able to transfer their problems to another person and so she carried on with the family but felt that her advocacy role was severely compromised. Although she felt that she had done what she could and challenged discriminatory assumptions against the family and in setting up domicilary care and a support network she felt that she had failed because she did not feel able to challenge the housing association with whom she was required to work in partnership (Henley, 2003).

However the ethics and values of social work imply that justice and empowerment are central to the social work profession and when the rights and empowerment of a service user are compromised by structural forces and institutional relationships then according to the BASW the social worker’s primary duty is to her immediate client and she has a duty to challenge anything which impinges on that and:

Bring to the attention of those in power and the general public, and where appropriate challenge ways in which policies or activities of government, organisations or society create or contribute to structural disadvantage hardship and suffering, or militate against their relief. (BASW 2002 p3)

Certainly there are dilemmas for social workers who are also advocates, but I think that the dilemmas may be overstated. As Parrott (2002) has pointed out changes within the human services over the last twenty years have eroded the autonomy that social workers once had. The new managerialism within the services, the introduction of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, and greater centralised control have made it difficult for social workers to challenge unjust practices and structures. The BASW however, makes it quite clear that ethically a social worker has a primary duty to the service user. If that duty conflicts with the social worker’s duties to an agency or other organisation that they are in partnership with then this needs to be highlighted.

Clearly though there are dilemmas in being a social worker and advocate.

Personally I would agree with Dunning (1995) who recommends that advocates be independent volunteers. Social work advocates are professionals, because they receive a remuneration for their services they do have a loyalty to their employers. Even in cases where that loyalty might be considered to be secondary it still places the social worker in an unenviable position, advocating (usually) against departments and organisations that they either work for or work in partnership with. If advocates were all volunteers then it would mitigate such divided loyalty because they would owe allegiance only to the person they were advocating for. Certainly this is what Age Concern propose for Older People, they advocate the use of volunteer champions who would champion the rights of the person that they were working with. Dunning (1995) has said that volunteer advocates should come from all backgrounds, but research into advocacy has shown that advocates from middle class backgrounds tend to be more articulate, know their way around the system, and are thus more successful in their advocacy role. Such volunteers could then be paid out of pocket expenses. However, Sang and Obrien (1984) have pointed out that not all professionals are in agreement over using volunteers as advocates of service users and without professional agreement it will not be possible to make widespread use of them. My own feeling is that taking advocacy along this route would seem the most sensible, using volunteers means that they should not have divided loyalties. At the very least it would do away with at least some of the dilemmas that social workers currently face.

Conclusion

This paper has looked at the concept of advocacy. It has looked at the uses of advocacy and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of combining advocacy with the social work role. Clearly advocacy poses some dilemmas for social workers and in some respects the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Although a social worker may be more familiar with a particular case and with the workings of the system divided loyalties mean that combining advocacy with the social work role poses dilemmas for those involved.

Bateman, N 1995 Advocacy Skills, Aldershot, Arena

Bateman, N (2000) Advocacy Skills for Health and Social Care Professionals, London and Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers

BASW 2002 The Code of Ethics for Social Work Birmingham

Dunning A 1995 Citizenship Advocacy with Older People A Code of Good Practice London The Centre for Policy on Aging

Parrott, L 2002 Social Work and Social Care London, Routledge.

Sang and OBrien 1984 Advocacy: The UK and American Experience London The Kings Fund

Quinn, A., Snowling, A. and Denicolo, P. (2003) Older People’s Perspectives:

Devising Information, Advice and Advocacy Services. York: Joseph

Rowntree Foundation

Wolfenberger, W 1977 A Multi-development Advocacy and Protection Scheme Toronto Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded


[1] (http://:www.cambsmh.nhs.uk/html/public-open.advocacy,+rights+and+responsibilities

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