SS14 92 - Kent Advocacy Hub for Adult Services

Summary: The Opportunity Kent County Council wishes to create an Advocacy Hub for adults in Kent. The primary role of the Hub will be to meet all statutory requirements on the Council for the provision of independent advocacy under the terms of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Mental Health Act 2007, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the Care Act 2014, and across all categories of need, including young people in transition to adult services.

The hub will also be expected to provide non statutory Community Advocacy and Peer Advocacy to adults across all categories of need, including, but not exclusive to, adults with dementia, mental health needs, autistic spectrum conditions, and physical and sensory impairments. The only exception is Learning Disability Community Advocacy which is out of scope of this contract at the time of going out to tender, as there is already an existing countywide Learning Disability Advocacy contract in place.

Kent County Council reserves the right to include this provision within this contract, at a later stage within the duration of this contract, if all parties are in agreement The Advocacy Hub will also be required to provide leadership in respect of wider advocacy matters across the area working in partnership with the voluntary and community sector (VCS) and advise providers to ensure that the concept of advocacy is understood and that support is available to all citizens who may have genuine difficulty articulating or negotiating their needs and personal goals. Demand projection presents particular challenges; the application of new Care Act requirements is likely to be gradual but progressive whilst at national and local level efforts are currently being made to gauge the full impact of recent Supreme Court judgements on the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications and Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) workloads.

The scope of advocacy within this opportunity will include: · Statutory advocacy: Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy and Relevant Person's Representative; Independent Mental Health advocacy; Care Act Independent Advocacy and Health Complaints Advocacy; and · Community advocacy: Specialist advocacy for people with particular support or communication needs due to disability, frailty or other vulnerability. The type of advocacy used should depend on what is best suited for the person who seeks it, rather than belonging to a particular client category; and · Peer Advocacy: Peer advocacy gives the opportunity for people trained in advocacy who share the same experiences or use the same services to help people who have difficulty making their views known to develop the skills to speak up for themselves, or if required to...(cont)