What We Do

Pembrokeshire Advocacy provides the following services:

• Crisis advocacy – working on a 1:1 basis with clients facing difficulties such as homelessness, financial abuse, family breakdown, problems with service provision, or dilemmas raised through transitions from home to living independently. This is our core work.
  
  
• Self Advocacy – group work with clients which aims to develop the individual’s capacity to express themselves and take a full part in meetings. These groups enable some of the most vulnerable clients to self refer for crisis support.
  
  
• Family Project – this group works with families at risk where the parent has a learning disability. The Project focuses on topics such as Housing, Child Care, Education and Health. This group addresses issues through peer support and by inviting speakers from the statutory sector to discuss the concerns of the families. The Finding the Right Support document, produced by the Norah Fry Research Centre and funded by the Baring Foundation, highlighted the barriers to the provision of appropriate support for these families. England benefited from substantial funding as a result of this research but Wales was left out, even though it took part in the study. Pembrokeshire Advocacy is currently involved in directly reporting our families’ experiences to the Learning Disability Wales forum which informs Westminster. This takes our participation in service provision to strategic Government level.
  
  
• Pembrokeshire People First – has been established under Pembrokeshire Advocacy’s umbrella. It is affiliated to All Wales People First whose remit is to “support people with learning disabilities to speak up for themselves and overcome discrimination by providing a collective voice.”
  
• my.advoc8 - We have been successful in gaining funding from the Big Lottery Fund to provide training, support and supervision to 5 young people with learning disabilities for them to become peer advocates.  This accredited training was delivered with the collaboration of Pembrokeshire College.

• Art Project - Pembrokeshire Advocacy has been awarded funding from the Arts Council of Wales to develop an art project to two groups where they can explore expressing their thoughts and feelings through different media.  This work will be undertaken by Karen with support from our volunteers: Gethin and Sharon.
  
• Advocacy Training - Pembrokeshire Advocacy and Pembrokeshire People First can provide training to organisations in Learning Disability Equality Awareness and Advocacy. Please contact us for details.