Viewpoints

My mum was the rock in the family, now my father does mostly everything. She has changed, repeating conversations, becoming incontinent, aggressive and emotionally detached. But she will always be the head of the family and the cement that holds it all together. But what about all those families that don’t have that? That is why Ceartas should be proud of it's organisation.


Professional

Ceartas provides Independent professional advocacy. Ceartas is funded to work with all care groups over 16 throughout East Dunbartonshire. Advocates work in a variety of settings from the person’s own home to hospitals and care homes.

The aim is to support people to represent their own interests. If this is not possible, the advocate will represent the person’s views.

The advocate provides support on specific issues. He or she provides information not advice and will provide short or long term support. Independent professional advocates will support several people at any time.

Advocacy can be provided by both paid and volunteer advocates.

Here is an example of our work…

Mrs A requested advocacy support to help her raise a complaint with a statutory organisation. Mrs A had already completed Stage One of the complaint and I began supporting her with Stage Two. The organisation refuted the complaint and Mrs A felt things were quite hopeless.

An advocacy worker suggested that if Mrs A was unhappy with the final decision of the organisation she could ask the Ombudsman to look into the complaint. Mrs A decided to take this action and with my support, Mrs A filled out some forms and gave the Ombudsman all relevant documents. Mrs A felt quite overwhelmed by the proceedings; therefore, the worker offered to be the main contact for all communication with the Ombudsman. Mrs A felt great relief with this and met regularly at the Ceartas office to discuss the progress of her complaint.

The Ombudsman found that the statutory organisation had not followed normal procedure when dealing with Mrs A’s complaint. This prompted the organisation to offer Mrs A what she had requested initially and carry this out to her satisfaction. By giving Mrs A all her options and supporting her to challenge the organisation, she felt she had the strength not to accept their initial decisions.

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