Advocacy Essay

Drawing on your current and previous social care experience, theoretical perspectives and knowledge acquired through the DPP2 module, present a discussion of your understanding of these concepts and, their relevance to your own developing professional practice.

This assignment will examine the concepts of Advocacy, Partnership Working and Empowerment. It will firstly describe the three concepts individually and then, in order to examine the topic in more depth, scrutinise how the concepts link and are relevant to each other. The complexities and tensions regarding these connections and how these may impact on service users, social workers and social care agencies will also be examined. Examples of professional working practice will be used throughout to demonstrate how theory is applied to practice. Advocacy
Advocacy can be described as acting on behalf of another person or group of people (Banks, 2001). This concept is especially important in social care because the client group is often unable to speak out for themselves, due to issues such as vulnerability, isolation or lack of family support networks. Advocacy enables workers to empower service users by ensuring that their needs and rights are met, and by securing services that they are entitled to. It redresses the power imbalances by guaranteeing that the service user is involved with discussing options and negotiating agreements (Braye et al, 1998). An advocate’s role is to comply with the wishes and instructions of the client and to keep them thoroughly informed throughout the process. Confidentiality and acting impartially are also critical in advocacy as the service users own desires are the most important factor (Thompson, 2001). In my role as a Youth Offending Team Officer, I act as an advocate regularly. An example of this is when a young person is homeless and I act as an independent advocate by speaking out on behalf of my client. The legislation around young people and

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