# MHApps Take Control – Advocacy – Importance Of Help And Support With Medical Legal Government Work

Advocacy
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- Advocacy Sometimes people need support that is very objective. It could be to do with social welfare payments, or benefits of any kind. You may need support negotiating with an employer, doctor or service. You may want to complain about a service.
  Advocacy is about providing information and support so that the person can decide which route to take. It’s about travelling with a person so that they can try and get to where they want to go. An advocate will help with the route or map, ‘ride tandem’, sitting on the back seat, leaving the person in control at the front. An advocate will also sit in the front seat when asked to.
- Advocacy is intended to help a person along the road to recovery. Being in control of your own bicycle is the aim, but making sure that if you need to ride tandem, it will be there when you need it.

- What is advocacy? · First and foremost, enabling and supporting a person to speak up for themselves (self advocacy)
  · A means of empowering people by supporting them to assert their views and claim their rights and entitlements
  · A means of enabling people who may have difficulty speaking up for themselves to do so
  · Representing and negotiating on a person’s behalf
  · Information and support in accessing community services e.g. housing, social welfare, employment, education, community mental health services
  · Support and representation when dealing with services and ‘officials’
- Why is advocacy needed? People with experience of mental ill health are often disadvantaged and excluded from the communities in which they live, and they may want the support of a person who is not there to judge their situation or problem, but who will travel beside them so that they can regain control of their life and its direction.
  Shine has a community advocacy service called Ár nGlór. There are advocates in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny.
  The Irish Advocacy Network is a peer advocacy service. They provide advocacy services, mainly but not exclusively, in inpatient settings. All of their advocates have personal experience of mental ill health.
  Citizen Information Centres provide a wide range of information and support. There are 53 centres throughout the country.
  Contact details for these services are at the back of this guide.

- Being in control of your own bicycle is the aim. But making sure that if you need to ride tandem, it will be there when you need it

Advocacy
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