Advocacy
Support
lessons from an action research project
Parents
Together
was an action research project that set up to support parents
with learning difficulties, using an advocacy approach, in ways
that were non-stigmatising, non-intrusive and responsive to the
parents' views of their own needs. The key lessons for practice
to emerge were:
- The
principles and practices
developed by Parents Together were endorsed by the parents involved
in the project and serve as guidelines for all practitioners
seeking to work in partnership with families.
- Without an adequate
infrastructure of health and social services, advocacy alone
is unable to relieve the environmental pressures that undermine
parents' ability to cope.
- Advocacy might
not be able to relieve the pressures that make life difficult
for parents, but it can act to prevent them being compounded
by bad practice and competence-inhibiting
support.
- Advocates were
no more successful than the parents themselves over the longer
term at dealing with the failings in
the system. In both cases, individuals were worn down by
the constant struggle to get anything done.
- The goal should
be to get the system working better to support families rather
than to get everyone an advocate.
- The advocacy support
groups were successful in helping people to work with their problems
(if not resolve them) and to feel better about themselves.
 'Parents Together: action research and advocacy
support for parents with learning difficulties', Health and
Social Care in the Community, 7(6), 1999, 464-474.
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