SHEP Advocacy

This is an area of independent advocacy that has been largely neglected as one to one advocacy support has become more professionalised over the past ten years. We will also continue to support advocacy networks and facilitate advocacy trainings.

This change (from a focus on one to one advocacy support to group advocacy facilitation) reinforces SHEP’s community development ethos and builds capacity for change through experiential learning and participatory group work.

We are currently working on the development and co-facilitation of courses and workshops that focus on all elements of advocacy e.g. self, peer, group and representative advocacy.

We are involved in particular advocacy activities that link us with other individuals, groups and organisations that have a commitment to social justice and human rights e.g. The ‘Our Rights and Medication’ Advocacy Group, the Independent Advocacy Gathering.

As part of our training programme we offer a SHEP Certificate; ‘Introduction to Advocacy’ aimed at those wishing to develop their advocacy skills. We also offer a course in Self-Advocacy which we tailor to specific group requests. For further information see the Training and Development Section of the website, or contact Deirdre Lillis, Advocacy Co-ordinator on (021) 4666180 or email deirdre.lillis@socialandhealth.com

SHEP has been involved in advocacy since the year 2000 and was to the forefront in the development of advocacy for older people through a project called Cork Older People’s Advocacy Service. A defining feature of SHEP’s model of advocacy has been pioneering the training and deployment of advocates in both volunteer and contracted capacities from the context and experience of active involvement in this work.

We participated very successfully in the pilot Advocacy Project for People with Disabilities which was funded by the Citizen Information Board (CIB). This allowed SHEP to offer a high level of representative advocacy through a full-time professional advocate between 2008 and 2010

Since 2010 SHEP Advocates have been deployed to support people facing the challenges of de-congregation (the closing of larger institutions and the shift to supported living in the community). SHEP has also deployed advocates to provide advocacy for older people in residential settings consisting of regular visits to Nursing Homes providing them with group and individual advocacy.

Our intention in 2021 is to:

extend our work in facilitating independent advocacy groups in settings for adults with disabilities and

develop training opportunities in advocacy to include, self, peer, group and representative advocacy.

Currently the SHEP Advocacy Project consists of a small team of advocates who have completed the SHEP Introduction to Advocacy course. Consideration is also given to prior learning and experience where people are interested in this work and who have not yet completed the SHEP Introduction to Advocacy course.

The work can include:

• Involvement in particular advocacy activities e.g. The ‘Our Rights and Medication’ Advocacy Group, the Independent Advocacy Gathering.
• Independent Group Advocacy Facilitation in residential and community settings that serve adults with disabilities including older people in nursing homes and people using mental health services.
• The development and co-facilitation of courses and workshops that focus on all elements of advocacy e.g. self, peer, group and representative advocacy.
• Attending SHEP Advocacy Project team meetings where we meet regularly to share learning and develop the work of the project.
• Helping out with the administrative tasks of the Advocacy Project
• Some one to one independent advocacy support may also be provided to disabled people who are struggling to get their voice heard and the rights respected with signposting to other independent advocacy services where necessary.

To support the Advocacy team SHEP provides supervision, garda clearance, and on-going support and guidance from SHEP’s Advocacy Co-ordinator.

The SHEP Advocacy Project invites people to become involved as volunteers and where resources allow, as contracted advocates.

The role of the advocate is to give time to listen to people’s concerns and work out, with them, how advocacy can support them or help them to support themselves. It is based on building a relationship of loyalty and trust and confidentiality. It can involve access to information on rights and entitlements. Our move to focussing on group advocacy facilitation as a primary area of work involves applying these skills in group settings.

Those who volunteer and who undertake contracted work with the SHEP Advocacy Project find that the commitment is fulfilling. They value being a member of a team of people with similar values. They also find that the regular team and supervision meetings are very helpful.

Working as an advocate with SHEP is an opportunity for people who have successfully completed SHEP’s Introduction to Advocacy course to put their learning into practice. It may suit people who wish to give something to their community through providing supports to others.

If you are interested in getting involved with SHEP as an advocate you would need to:

1. Share SHEP’s commitment to independent advocacy
2. Successfully complete SHEP’s Introduction to Advocacy Training Course (or equivalent).
3. Prepare an application and, if shortlisted, attend a selection interview.
4. Have shown an understanding and commitment to the values of advocacy and a commitment to working with disabled people dealing with inequity and marginalisation.
5. Have the capacity to work in this complex and sometimes demanding role.
6. Undergo garda vetting as required.

Developing our skills to speak up and speak out.

There may be times in our lives we can find ourselves in situations where we need to speak up for ourselves. This might be in our personal lives, our working lives, in relation to the conditions of our housing, our finances, our health. We may speak up for ourselves on our own, with support or maybe as a group.

This Self-Advocacy course aims to offer a space to share our experiences, to learn from each other and to enhance our capacity to:

• Know and believe in ourselves
• Know about our rights, where to find them and how to seek them
• Know about communicating when power may be unequal for many reasons.
• Strengthen our voice and our courage in speaking up for ourselves.

This 8 session course will be held online through Zoom on Monday Evenings starting on Monday October 3rd from 7.00pm to 9.30pm and 2 Saturdays ‘in person’.

Cost: 50 euros.

Please see SHEP website or contact info@socialandhealth.com or call 021 4666180 for an application form.

Please contact deirdre.lillis@socialandhealth.com if you have any queries.

Timetable:

8 sessions: 6 nights x 2. 1/2 hours and 2 Saturdays x 7 hours ( rounded to30 hours)

1. Monday October 3rd 7-9.30pm (Zoom) Getting Started

2. Monday October 10th 7-9.30pm (Zoom) Know Yourself, Believe in Yourself

3. Saturday October 15th 10.00 – 5.00. (In Person) Know Your Rights (a,b and c) Venue to be confirmed(Cork)

4. Monday October 24th 7-9.30pm (Zoom) Self- Advocacy Tools e.g. Advance Healthcare Directives (31st is mid-term)

5. Monday November 7th 7-9.30pm (Zoom) Gathering Support and Targeting Efforts.

6. Monday November 14th 7-9,30pm(Zoom) How Do I Communicate?

7. Monday November 21st 7-9.30pm (Zoom) Expressing Myself and Asserting Myself.

8. Saturday 26th November 5pm (In Person) Strengthening our Venue to be confirmed (Cork) Courage – Course endings.

See Application form below:

Application form link here

For SHEP, advocacy is about being beside an individual or a group, supporting them to get their voice heard and supporting them to access their rights and entitlements. It is what we all do for each other as friends and family at different and perhaps difficult times in our lives. It is not about making an assessment and taking decisions about what’s in a persons best interests. It is about listening, supporting, sometimes questioning or challenging a decision, and sometimes speaking up for a person or group. It is fundamental to SHEPs commitment to empowering vulnerable or marginalised groups and communities and to the promotion of social justice.

A number of key principles underpin SHEPs advocacy work. These include:

• a fundamental respect for the human rights of marginalised individuals and groups
• the empowerment of the person
• collective empowerment
• group advocacy facilitation as a primary strategy for social justice
• the facilitation of informed choices and decisions
• and the independence of the advocate and the advocacy service.

In SHEP we see advocacy as clearly linked to community development and social justice. It plays an important role in developing civil society and bringing about social transformation.

SHEP have been involved in Advocacy Training for more than twenty years. Currently, our focus is on two training courses, as follows:

• SHEP Certificate in Introduction to Advocacy (planned for September 2024. To register your interest, please contact marge.lysaght@socialandhealth.com)

Details of the introduction to Advocacy Course can be found here -Â https://socialandhealth.com/training/introduction-to-advocacy-training/

• SHEP Certified Self-Advocacy Course: Developing Our Skills to Speak Up and Speak Out (starting October 17th 2023; closing date for applications is September 18th 2023)

Are you interested in learning about what self-advocacy involves? Are you thinking about how you might be able to develop your own skills to self- advocate for access to your rights and entitlements? Do you want to develop your abilities to speak up for yourself? If yes is the answer to these questions, then this part-time SHEP course, starting in October 2023, may be of interest to you.

Developing Our Skills to Speak Up and Speak Out’ course.

There may be times in our lives when we need to speak up for ourselves. Situations might arise in our personal or working lives, in relation to the conditions of our housing, finances or health.

Sometimes we may need to speak up for ourselves on our own, with support or maybe as a group. This Self-Advocacy course aims to offer a space to share our experiences, to learn from each other and to enhance our capacity to self-advocate.

This open-access Social and Health Education Project (SHEP) course is an introduction to self-advocacy and is a SHEP certified course. It will be of interest to a wide variety of people who want to improve their skills to speak out on issues affecting their lives.

What makes this programme unique is that it has been developed in the context of the SHEP Advocacy Programme, which provides direct advocacy services to adults with disabilities living in the community and in disability service settings.

This means that the programme has the benefit of direct experience in providing support to people to build self-advocacy skills, as well as being informed by the day-to-day realities of advocacy practice in the landscape of rights and entitlements for people with disabilities.

Therefore, while skills learned are applicable in a variety of settings, there will be an emphasis on self-advocacy in relation to disabilities.

The course will be facilitated by experienced advocacy practitioners and trainers. It will be delivered over 7 weeks. It involves 8 training sessions: 6 ‘in person’ x 2.5hour sessions held on Tuesday evenings, and 2 x 7 hour sessions held on 2 Saturdays.

Please note that this course does not focus on representative advocacy.

The aim of the course is to provide participants with an opportunity to develop their self-advocacy skills, with an emphasis on experiential learning, so that they can apply this learning to issues, and in settings, in their own lives. Participants who successfully complete this course will acquire knowledge, skills and understanding which will help them to develop skills for self-advocacy.

This course is underpinned by SHEP’s philosophy that self-awareness and self-knowledge, when combined with a commitment to community action, is the basis for personal and social transformation. The course is inspired by SHEP’s commitment to equality, social justice, social transformation, and the contribution that group spaces can create for learning. The course reflects SHEP’s philosophy that adults continue to learn throughout their life and that life and practice experience is an invaluable source for that learning.

For more information please contact the course co-ordinator on marge.lysaght@socialandhealth.com or call 021 4666180

To view Course Flyer, click here:https://socialandhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Publicity-2023-self-advocacy-course-flyer-.jpg

To view the Course Brochure, click here: https://socialandhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Developing-Our-Skills-to-Speak-Up-and-Speak-Out-2023-Course-Brochure.pdf

To request a course application form, please contact marge.lysaght@soicalandhealth.com, info@soicalandhealth.com or call 021 4666180.

Get the PDF

The Our Rights and Medication (ORAM) Advocacy Group is a network of experts by experience, advocates, academics and practitioners hosted by the SHEP Advocacy Program.

We are recent recipients of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Grant Scheme.

We want to make sure that everyone knows that they have choices and rights around medication.

We support the principles of human rights-based practice in relation to the prescribing of medication.

This means following the FREDA principles.

Fairness, Respect, Equality, Dignity, Autonomy; the FREDA principles promoted by HIQA, are relevant to prescribing medication in just the same way as they are relevant to other supports such as housing, education and work.

And this means supporting:

– The right to be fully informed about the medication being prescribed. – The right to informed decision-making and informed consent. – The right to medication review including options for reduction and de-prescribing if that is what the person wants. – The right to the least restrictive option. – The right to be heard and for concerns to be considered and acted upon. – A right to have the right support to address any and all of these rights.

To learn more about the work of ORAM and our commitment to the FREDA human rights principles you can watch our short animated video.