Advocacy support to get your voice heard

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    What is Advocacy?

    Advocacy is free, independent support to help you to get your voice heard. Advocacy services pair you up with an independent advocate who is on your side if you need support. They can:

    • Help you to find information
    • Talk things through with you to find out what you want
    • Support you to get your views across at appointments and meetings
    • Help you to understand your rights

    What can an Advocate help with?

    When to use an Advocate

    It can be helpful to use an advocate when you:

    • Want things in your life to change but don’t know where to start
    • Feel that you are not being listened to
    • Feel like you are on your own
    • Need help to speak up for yourself

    Types of advocacy available in Newcastle

    Care and support

    Community

    Mental Health

    NHS Health Care complaints

    Dementia

    Care and support advocacy

    Independent advocacy is for people who have difficulty in understanding or taking part in decisions about their care and support including:

    • Carers assessments
    • Safeguarding enquiries or processes
    • Social care: assessments, reviews or support plans

    Adult Social CarePoint at Newcastle City Council can arrange for an independent advocate if there is no one else to support you, for example a friend or family member. The advocate will support you with understanding the discussions and expressing your views.  For example, they may support you through your needs assessment so the Council can work out what support you need to help you stay independent.

    Young people who are moving from Children’s Social Care to Adult Social Care can get help to get their views heard. Until you are 18 years old your parents and carers are involved in your assessment. Your parents and carers can still be involved when you are 18 years old, if you want them to be.

    Your Voice Counts is commissioned by Newcastle City Council to provide this service in Newcastle.

    Community advocacy

    Connected Voice Advocacy provide advocacy services to help you to get your voice heard.  An Advocate will help you speak up for yourself, find out about your rights, explore your options, make decisions and choices or get services or support:

    Health and care advocacy: They help adults in Newcastle and Gateshead who need support with health and care issues and/or are in vulnerable circumstances. This includes people who are:

    • LGBTQIA+
    • Ethnically marginalised
    • Refugees and asylum seekers
    • Over 55 years old
    • Discriminated or treated unfairly
    • Experiencing financial crisis and hardship
    • Affected by racism

    And people who have:

    • Mental health needs
    • A learned disability
    • A physical disability
    • Acquired brain injury

    And who:

    • Require support to make their views and feelings known
    • Have inappropriate support, or lack support from services or family
    • Have no-one independent with their interests at heart
    • Are aged 18 and over

    They also support people who have been targeted because of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity who live in the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner area (Northumberland, Tyne & Wear) who has:

    • Experienced a hate crime
    • Is at risk of a hate crime
    • Perceives themselves to be at risk of a hate crime
    • Is affected by hate crime

    Also available is their:

    Help through crisis project: Connected Voice Advocacy also deliver advocacy support as part of the Help through crisis project  in partnership with North East Law Centre. The project helps individuals in Newcastle who are experiencing crisis and hardship.

    DIY Advocate®: DIY Advocate® is an online tool to work through problems. It helps organise your problem step by step, think about your options, make decisions, get more information and make an action plan. It gives you tools to make your voice heard and have your rights upheld. It can help you get the services you need.

    You can refer yourself or someone else to Connected Voice Advocacy on their website.

    Connected Voice also offer training resources for professionals, which you can read more information about here.

    Mental Health advocacy

    The following statutory services are provided by Your Voice Counts in Newcastle:

    Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) Service

    The IMCA Service is for people who lack mental capacity and have no one to support them or represent their views. An IMCA is appointed by a professional to support and represent you to make important decisions about:

    • Serious medical treatment
    • Long-term change of residence. For example moving into a hospital or care home
    • Deprivation of liberty

    You may lack capacity because of dementia, a brain injury, a learning disability or mental health needs.  An IMCA can be involved if you’ve been abused or neglected, or accused of abusing someone else.

    What happens when an IMCA is appointed

    The IMCA:

    • Meets you and others involved in your care so you can speak up about your wishes, feelings, beliefs and values
    • Submits a report to the decision maker highlighting all of the things that are important about the decision
    • Can challenge the decision maker on your behalf if needed
    • Can help with care reviews in certain cases
    How to use the IMCA Service

    You can be referred to this service by a health professional, a social worker or Adult Social CarePoint.  If a person lacks capacity, then they are entitled to an IMCA to represent them throughout the safeguarding adults process whether or not they have someone to represent them.

    Full details of how to make a referral are on Your Voice Counts website.

    Your Voice Counts is commissioned by Newcastle City Council to provide the IMCA service in Newcastle.

    Independent Mental Health Advocate (IMHA)

    IMHA help people who have no one to support them or represent their views. This includes people who are:

    • Setained or ‘sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act also known as ‘subject to the Mental Health Act’
    • On supervised community treatment or guardianship orders
    • Conditionally discharged from hospital

    IMHAs can help you to:

    • Understand the information you are given about your care or treatment
    • Talk to the medical or social work team about your care or treatment
    • Access information about how the Mental Health Act applies to them
    • ​Attend meetings with you or stand in for you if you prefer
    • Help with applications to Tribunals and Managers reviews
    • Support you to participate in decisions

    How to use the IMHA Service

    You can self refer to this service if you are eligible or you can be referred to this service by a health professional, a social worker or Adult Social CarePoint. Full details of how to make a referral are on Your Voice Counts website.

    Your Voice Counts is commissioned by Newcastle City Council to provide the IMHA service in Newcastle.

    Relevant Persons Representative (RPR)

    Under Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding ( DoLS), if a person living in a care home, or staying in hospital, is assessed as lacking in capacity to choose where they will live then, in order to receive care or treatment, this may mean that the council will need to carry out additional assessments to determine if the person is deprived of their liberty. Following assessment, if the DoLS authorisation is granted, then a representative called the ‘relevant person’s representative’ is appointed. Often this is a family member or friend.  If the person doesn’t have a relative or friend who is able to take on this role, or it is felt that they may not be appropriate, the council must appoint a paid representative.

    The paid representative is a professional who is trained and experienced in these matters, who will act for the person in relation to the DOLS. The job of the representative is to stay in regular contact with the person. They should consider whether the person’s care arrangements need to change, be given access to documents about decisions, and if necessary ask for a review of an assessment decision. The representative can also appeal against the DoLS authorisation, and should do so where the person under DoLS disagrees with it, even if they themselves do not.

    If you are eligible for this service your social worker can refer you.  Your Voice Counts is commissioned by Newcastle City Council to provide the RPR service in Newcastle.

    NHS health care complaints advocacy

    NHS Independent Complaints Advocacy (ICA) can help you if you feel you have not had the service you expect from the National Health Service (NHS) and want to make a complaint. Your Voice Counts is commissioned to provide this service.

    An NHS complaint might include something that happened during care or treatment at:

    • The hospital
    • Your general practitioner (GP)
    • The dentist
    • The pharmacist
    • The optician
    • An NHS-funded care home
    • Any other NHS-funded service, even if delivered in the private sector

    You can watch a video in British Sign Language (BSL) about your rights to make a NHS health complaint:

    Dementia advocacy

    Silverline Memories runs a Dementia Advocacy and Care Navigation Service. They can help people with a diagnosis of Dementia, their carers and families to navigating health and social care system and to get your voice heard.

    Other useful information

    Below are links to some resources that may help those who are affected by issues listed on this page:

    Last updated: October 5, 2026