Looking out for Each Other: Northern Launch

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Wednesday 1 February 2017, 10.30am – 4pm – The Quaker Meeting House, Liverpool.

This event is the northern launch of the findings of an assessment of the scale of and need for informal advocacy in local communities.

Programme:

10.30am Registration and refreshments

10.45 Chair’s Open Remarks and a brief history and background to the research – Joe Monaghan, Chief Officer, National Coalition of Advocacy Schemes

11am The road to statutory advocacy and the challenges for community based advocacy groups of moving to providing statutory advocacy – Janet Badger, Chief Officer of the Advocacy Resource Exchange and BILD Advocacy Manager responsible for the English and Welsh Government Advocacy grants schemes(retired)

11.35 The findings of the report – Louise Hardwick, Department of Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology, University of Liverpool

12.15 Plenary Question and Answer session

12.45 Lunch

For those attending the whole day, the afternoon session will commence at I.45pm. For those attending the afternoon only, registration will be from 1.30pm

Looking out for each other and creating the ‘good life’

Informal advocacy groups were developed to address the isolation experienced by those who were without networks of people that could listen to them and help them to be heard. Many other people and groups are involved in similar work with a common objective of protecting and promoting the rights and dignity of their friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours. The afternoon session will explore the barriers that they face and how small community and faith groups can work more productively together to build the ‘good life’.

1.30 Registration and refreshments

1.45 Chair’s welcome – Louise Hardwick, Department of Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology, University of Liverpool

2pm Who plays a part in ensuring that people’s rights and dignity are respected? – Joe Monaghan

2.25pm Discussion groups – What makes for a good life, what does and could each of us do to build it and what do we need to make it a greater reality?

3.25pm Feedback, summary and actions

4pm Close and further opportunity for networking

Speaker profiles:

Janet Badger has been an advocate for 25 years. She worked in the advocacy field in a formal way since developing a new advocacy charity for people with a learning disability in Solihull in 1991. In 2002, Janet went to work for British Institute of Learning Disabilities as their advocacy manager to manage to Department of Health and Welsh Assembly Government Advocacy Grants programmes. She has also worked for the Advocacy Resource Exchange and was Chair of the Board of Trustees of Solihull Action through Advocacy for 10 years.

Louise Hardwick is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology at the University of Liverpool. She is also the Director of the charity Interchange, based in the School of Law & Social Justice. Louise originally practiced as a social worker and her interest in social care, the voluntary sector, and welfare reform has influenced much of her research and teaching.

Joe Monaghan has served as the elected Chief Officer of the National Coalition of Advocacy Schemes since it was founded in 2001. He has been involved in different roles in community and voluntary sectors for over fifty years. He has been involved in advocacy at a national, regional and local level since 1992, and chairs Liverpool’s Integrated Advocacy Group. Joe advocates an ‘Advocacy Plus’ approach to advocacy which is deeply rooted in a belief that the dignity and rights of all people are best secured through a community development approach at neighbourhood level. He is very active as a volunteer in his local community.