Easy To Read

• Advocacy is about you and your rights.
• Advocacy makes sure you are listened to.
• Self-Advocacy is when you speak up for yourself.
• Advocacy is getting help to speak up.
• Advocacy helps you look at different options.

What does an Advocate do?

• Listens to you and what you have to say.
• Always takes your side and stands with you.
• Finds out information for you.
• Helps you to look at your options.
• Helps you in making your own decisions.
• Helps you tell people like your family, staff, social workers what you want.
• Helps you prepare for meetings.
• Helps you make a complaint if you are unhappy with a service or the way you are treated.

What Happens Next?

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• You can tell the Advocate the best way to contact you. For example:
• You can choose to meet with an Advocate in person.
• You can choose to speak with an Advocate over the phone.
• You can choose to have a meeting with an Advocate online or on video chat.
• If you want, you can choose to have someone to support you when you speak with the Advocate.

Meeting the Advocate

• You can tell us how you would like an Advocate to help you.
• We will discuss whether an Advocate is the right person to help.
• Sometimes, advocacy is not the right service to support people. This may be because:
• The person is already a very good self – advocate.
• The person already has advocacy support from other people.
• Sometimes NAS may not be the right service to help you.
  When this happens, we can give you information about other services.

Waiting List

You and your advocate will:

• Sometimes NAS has a waiting list. You might have to wait before the Advocate can work with you.
• The Advocate will talk to you about this.

The Advocacy Process

• We will try to meet you at a time that suits you.
• We will try to meet you in a place that suits you.
• You and your Advocate will make an Advocacy Plan.
• The Advocacy Plan says what you want to happen.
• The Advocacy Plan explains the work the Advocate will do.
• You and your Advocate will decide when the work of the Advocacy Plan is finished.
• When the work is finished, your Advocate will stop working with you.

Approaches to Advocacy that we use

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• You will tell your Advocate what you want them to do.
• Your Advocate will not do something that you do not want.

Person centred

• You tell your Advocate what you want and need.
• You tell your Advocate what is important to you.
• Your Advocate will help you tell other people.
• Your Advocate will help you tell other people.

Witness observer

• We spend time with you and tell people what we notice so that we can help you change your situation.

Human Rights

• We support people to stand up for their rights, and to be treated equally.

Ordinary Life Principals

• Ordinary life principles looks at the quality of your life.
• It looks at how decisions about your life are made.
• There are 8 domains in ordinary Life Principles.
• The advocate will use the domains to ask questions of the Decision makers.
• The approach keeps you at the centre of the process.

Data Protection

• Personal information is also known as personal data.
• There are laws to protect personal data.
• We will explain GDPR to you and ask you to sign a GDPR consent form.
• We will ask you if it is ok to collect and store your personal data.
• You have a right to see the information we keep about you.

Confidentiality

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• NAS is a Confidential service.
  Confidential means that the information is kept private.
• Your work with your Advocate is confidential.
• We will also ask for your consent to share and get information from others.
• However, there may be times when we need to share information with someone else without your agreement. These are when:
•  – You, someone else or a child is in danger;
•  – A court asks for information;
•  – When the law tells us we have to;
•  – When we see or hear about abuse or neglect of a person.
• We will talk to you if this needs to happen.

Complaint

• NAS has a complaints policy. We are happy to share this with you.
• If you are not happy with NAS or your Advocate, you can make a complaint;
• In person to your Advocate;
• By phone – 0818 07 3000;
• By letter to our national office;
• Email or on complaint form:
  info@advocacy.ie.
• You can ask for help from someone else to make a complaint.
• You can contact the relevant line manager to make a complaint.

If you want to use the NAS service, you can fill out a form here