Advocacy in Wirral is a charity, which was set up in July 1992 by a small group of service users who had identified an unmet need in the services being offered to people with mental health problems in Wirral. This service has now been extended to cover people who experience drug and/or alcohol related problems.
Our aim is to provide advice, support and representation to potential clients via "Advice Points" located in accessible places around Wirral. We offer home visits to people who are unable to travel due to their illness, and also interview clients at our office base, near to Woodside Ferry, which is easily accessible by public transport, and has plenty of free car parking spaces.
Service User Involvement:
As well as the one-to-one advocacy, we also encourage and support service users to become actively involved in the planning and development of the mental health services they use in Wirral. We facilitate reference and consultation groups, which are attended by service users and representatives from Health and/or Social Services. This gives the opportunity for service users to have their say on the services they use, and also gives the statutory sector the opportunity of updating and feeding back information to the service users, about developments which are taking place in mental health services.
Advocacy in Wirral have representation on a wide range of planning and development groups facilitated by Health & Social Services, both locally in Wirral, and also on a wider scale i.e. West Cheshire & Wirral NHS Partnership Trust. One of our members attends the Trust's Patient & Public Involvement (PPI) Taskforce. This is a powerful monitoring group which is attended by Senior Management of the Trust, including the Chairperson and Chief Executive, nursing staff, and service users and carers. The prime objective of this Taskforce is to ensure service users and carers are fully involved in all decision-making, which takes place around mental health
