Length of contract: Fixed Term to 31st March 2027 (subject to continuance of funding)
Salary: £25,464.00 per annum pro-rata based on actual working hours
Hours: 21 hours per week
Based at: Trafford
We welcome new candidates to apply and join our growing team. Previous applicants, whilst appreciated, are kindly advised not to reapply.
Purpose of role
The role of a community advocate will be to provide support to individuals 18+ within the community to have a voice in decisions affecting their life, whilst helping them to understand their rights. The role will require the post holder to promote self-advocacy and empowerment and enable people to make informed decisions and get their views heard in matters relating to mental health and/or care and support needs within health and social care. This will be through one-to-one advocacy and other models of advocacy as required. This activity will include working with people with substantial difficulty, learning disabilities, mental health needs, those with physical and sensory impairment, and older people- list is not exhaustive.
Here are a few examples of how you could be supporting someone:
- Supporting a parent to have a voice when dealing with children social care services
- Supporting a person to navigate health services and attend appointments such as mental health services or the GP
- Supporting a person to access and navigate adult social care services
- Supporting a person to express dissatisfaction with services such as NHS Organisations or Adult Social Care or speaking on the phone if appropriate
- Support a person to understand what services are available to them both statutory and in the community to meet their health and social care needs
The post holder will also be required to confidently triage eligible and non-eligible referrals and making necessary contact to referrer/advocacy people where further clarification is needed. Where a case is not eligible, the post holder will be signposting the individual to other relevant services that can aid.
Key Tasks
- Manage a client caseload and ensure accurate case management and record keeping
- Remain independent from all other services, ensuring you are representing the person using the service only
- Carry out community engagement activities, meeting with third sector organisations, developing relationships, and establishing reciprocal referral protocols.
- Carry out advocacy duties in line with the QPM (Quality Performance Mark)
- Provide a person led and outcome focused advocacy service for the people we support
- Communicate with the person via phone, face to face, or virtually to explore what issues they would like support with
- Research and find out information for the person and help them to understand any information
- Work with other partners within the community, residential/care homes or hospital environments to ensure you are able to fairly represent the individual
- Support people to self-advocate (to articulate their own views wherever possible) or to speak on behalf of the person when requested to
- Promote the rights, equality, diversity and needs of the person by ensuring they are respected and valued as individuals
- Ensure that people have access to information that is presented in an appropriate manner for their individual needs, e.g. Easy Read documents
- Promote self-advocacy through partnership working, encouraging the person to have maximum involvement in their case, where appropriate
- Triaging referrals to the service and having discussions with partners and professionals where necessary
- Work as a member of the team, attend bi-monthly team meetings, peer group meetings, and contribute towards service planning and developments for advocacy and the wider organisation
- Represent Advocacy Focus at various meetings/promotional events as required and to provide feedback to the team
- Mentor and supervise volunteers and students to support clients through casework and peer advocacy groups
If you are interested in this exciting opportunity, please click to apply and we will send you an application form.
Please note that the salary advertised is for full time hours. If this post is less than 37 hours per week, the salary will be pro-rata.
This vacancy will close on 18th August 2026 however it may close before this date if the recruiting manager deems sufficient applications have been received. Therefore it is advised to complete your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.
Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply regularly as we will use this to contact you regarding your application.
Please note, that shortlisting is completed anonymously with candidates being assessed against the essential criteria for the post. Therefore only persons who can clearly demonstrate how they meet our person specification criteria in their application, will be short-listed.
Advocacy Focus is committed to fighting racism and other forms of oppression and discrimination. We want to be a great employer for all our staff, regardless of their background or characteristics. We recognise that not everyone is the same and that different people will require different support to fulfil their potential. One thing we can do to work towards that goal is to ensure that our staff team is representative of the diverse communities across our service delivery areas. We particularly encourage applications from men, members of the LGBTQ+ community, those living with a physical or mental disability, and those from an ethnic minority background.
Reasonable Adjustments: Support is available to candidates with disabilities when applying for vacancies. For more information on reasonable adjustments please contact our Recruitment Team.
Pay: £25,464.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company events
- Company pension
- Enhanced maternity leave
- Enhanced paternity leave
- Flexitime
- Health & wellbeing programme
- Life insurance
- On-site parking
- Referral programme
Experience:
- Health and Social Care: 1 year (required)
Licence/Certification:
- Driving Licence (preferred)
Work Location: On the road
