Registered Charity no. 1047965 Company Registered by Guarantee, no. 3072417

 

The Advocate provided me with all the help I needed and took a great deal of weight off my shoulders. I felt a great reward of thanks was due.”
Anonymous comment from a Service User (from a returned questionnaire)

As predicted our overall referral numbers for the current year demonstrates a decrease in service user take-up. The changes in criteria and the monitoring template introduced in the new Service Level Agreement last year have had an impact on the collection of this data. Following our instructions, we no longer close a referral until there is an outcome achieved and in the specific case of DWP benefits appeals, the wait now can take over 6 months until a case is decided. This somewhat distorts our ‘open’ work as these referrals only return to activity close to the time when the submissions or meetings are to be held!

Although there has been and no doubt will continue to be much discussion regarding whether professional (formal) advocacy has a role to play in assisting mental health service users in the pursuit of their rightful financial benefits, I fail to understand how advocacy representation in this area would not be viewed as substantially assisting service users into a world of ‘social inclusion’, which is currently accepted as the goal in all mental health recovery practice. People who have been seriously mentally ill require the care of those who understand and can professionally support them. At a meeting in London last year of all the interested advocacy agencies the consensus was how significant Benefits support remains for people who are attempting to remain ‘mentally well’. I am therefore delighted that MAPME has generated a ‘funding cost’ of approximately 1/7^th of the overall Benefits sum total that it has helped to successfully generate for clients. This cost does not allow for all the other work that we also provide, which in turn reduces even further the actual ‘spend’ on our services for Benefits. This is an astonishing achievement.

When we compare the proportion of community office advocacy, the district with the highest number of referrals is WBH (Witham, Braintree and Halstead). This district has the greatest proportion of advocacy support and the recent arrangements to deploy an advocate every 4 weeks to the new location of The Coach House in Halstead, where the Community Mental Health team is based, is proving successful. The WBH district has additional financial support not from Joint Mental Health Commissioning but from Partnership funding for that district which enables additional support hours weekly. In this year it grew by a take-up of 6% to account for 40% of all locality referral work, eclipsing Chelmsford which accounted for 34%. The additional service hours really do make a difference and I wish additional funding could be sourced for at least the Chelmsford district where need is very great and where we do not fully meet demand. Funding from Chelmsford Borough Council has proved in the past to be unsuccessful.

I would like to comment on the continued professionalism and dedication of all members of the Advocacy team. We have three MAPME advocates in our team since Tony Moynihan left due to health reasons. Sandra Brush and Barbara Horsley have recently been joined by Marjorie Neal replacing Jackie Farrow who has moved on after a year. The commitment and continued team work are a result of hard work and determined intent. The entire team including our part-time administration officer Brenda Yardley and project management from myself all hold a strong belief in the need for mental health advocacy. We view our model as an improved pathway to recovery and normalisation for the hundreds of service users who chose to ask for our support either directly or who were referred through other professional workers. Whatever changes may lie ahead, this has been a year of successful outcomes for our project.

Myra Houlding