Roles & responsibility
What is advocacy?
Advocacy is independent support for a child to express their views and have them heard — in reviews, in complaints, and in decisions about their care.
It exists because children in care are surrounded by adults with professional roles, and a child's own view can be summarised by others rather than heard from them.
An advocate acts on the child's instructions rather than in what they judge to be the child's best interests, which is precisely what distinguishes the role from every other adult around them.
Children have to know it is available and how to access it, which makes it a practical matter for the home rather than something the placing authority arranges invisibly.
What goes wrong in practice
- Availability mentioned once at admission and never again.
- Access arranged by the home in a way a child would not use for a complaint about the home.
- Advocate's role confused with a best-interests role.