Provision of Independent Advocacy & Independent Visitor Services

Partners from Bradford Children and Families Trust and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council are working together to review and develop Independent Visiting and Advocacy Services for Bradford's Looked-After Children or Care Leavers. Legislation imposes a duty on local authorities to make arrangements for the provision of advocacy and to appoint an independent visitor for children and young people intending to make representations under the Children Act 1989 (Adoption and Children Act 2002).

As well as requiring an Independent Visiting and Advocate service to meet its statutory obligations, Bradford Children’s and Families Trust wishes to work with the successful partner to adopt a casework approach which will utilise generic lessons learnt from advocates' work to develop more child-centred services. The central role of an advocate is to support children and young people to express their wishes and feelings to decision-makers, and ensure their rights are upheld.

The Service will offer professional, high-quality independent advocacy to children and young people across all categories of need, who are users of Children’s Social Care. An Independent Visitor’s role is to visit and befriend a child in care who has little or no family time with their birth parents and would benefit from having an adult in their lives who can give them support, advice and take an interest in their affairs. The objective of the Independent Visitor Service is to recruit, train, match, and manage a pool of volunteer Independent Visitors for the population of children in care covered within the scope of this specification.