CHCAD1C Advocate for clients - Tasks

Task 1:
In your own words respond to the following questions and statements.
1. Outline your understanding of advocacy.

in an aged care context, means that the worker acts for and on behalf of the client

2. Why do you believe people with disabilities need advocacy? Give an example.

People with disability need advocacy because they do not always know their rights and options available to them. For example, a client might not know that they are legally entitled to an interpreter and hence not enjoy the sort of care that they are legally entitled to.

3. List 5 key elements or principles of advocacy.

• Assisting clients to identify their own needs and rights
• Meeting clients needs in the context of organisational requirements
• Supporting clients to ensure their rights are upheld
• Awareness of potential conflicts between client's needs and organisational requirements.
• Providing accurate information

4. Outline your understanding of each of these key elements or principles.

1. Assisting Clients to identify their needs and rights:
This implies that the care worker will make an assessment of needs and ensure that the clients are aware of their rights and entitlements and use this information to make value judgements needed to add value to the client’s care.2. Meeting the clients needs in the context of organisation requirements
The care worker works within the framework of the organisation they work for consequently a clients needs should be met without violating policies and procedures set out by the organisation

3. Supporting clients to ensure that their rights are upheld

The care worker will make known to the client their rights and will take necessary steps to ensure that clients make decisions in full knowledge of options and entitlements available to them.

4. Awareness of potential conflict between client’s needs and organisational requirements
A client’s needs might not fall within the obligations that an organisational is required to fulfil. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all needs are met within organisational practice.

5. Providing accurate information
Care worker will ensure that accurate information is gathered for the client to make informed decisions

5. Provide 2 examples of what is not considered advocacy and explain your reason.
Allowing a client to exploit you as a careworker such as sexually and allowing a client to abuse drugs are two examples of what is not considered advocacy. Client advocacy does not imply that the carer must let the client abuse them or abuse themselves hence the two above examples are examples that are not considered as advocacy.

6. Describe “self advocacy” and provide an example of when it would be appropriate for a person with a disability to self advocate and explain your response.

Self advocacy is an individual’s ability to effectively communicate, convey, negotiate or assert his or her own interests, desires, needs, and rights. It involves making informed decisions and taking responsibility for those decisions.
An instance when it will be appropriate for a person to self advocate could be when they feel that they are not adequately involved in the decision making of their care plan. Should this happen, my response would be to assess the client’s needs and wants and determine whether they fall within legal and policy obligations of the organisation. If they do, then I would continue to implement changes as advocated by the client.

7. Provide an example of when it would not be appropriate for a person with a disability to self advocate and explain your response.

It would not be appropriate for a person with say mental disability wants to stop taking medication. My response would be to inform the supervisor and contact family and doctor who will then advocate on behalf of the client appropriate action to be taken.

8. How would you support a person with a disability to advocate for his or her self?

By ensuring that they are updated with their rights and entitlements.

9. Briefly describe the different types of advocacy that are available to people with disabilities?

Self advocacy-This is speaking up for yourself
Peer advocacy -This is when the advocate and the advocacy partner share similar experiences or environments say live in the same nursing home.
Paid independent or professional advocacy-This can often be called crisis, issues based or case advocacy. It usually means that it is advocacy with clear outcomes and targets and the advocacy input finishes when the outcomes have been met. This advocacy can be undertaken by volunteers or paid members of local independent advocacy scheme staff or by individual paid consultant advocates.
Citizen advocacy
This is a partnership between two people. To try to make things clear, one is usually called the advocacy partner, and one the citizen advocate. An advocacy partner is someone at risk of having choices, wishes and decisions ignored, and who needs help in making them known and making sure they are responded to. A citizen advocate is a person who volunteers to speak up for and support an advocacy partner and is not paid to do so.

10. What is “conflict of interest”? Provide an example.

We can define a conflict of interest as a situation in which a person has a private or personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of his or her official duties as, say, a public official, an employee, or a professional. For example, if a client wants to go for a walk and I do not allow them to go for a walk because I am lazy and just want to sit and watch my favourite television program there is conflict of personal interest and the responsibility of a care worker.

11. How would you address a situation where you had a conflict of interest?

I would address it by acting in the best interest of the client.

12. What policies exist in the workplace relating to advocacy?

When a client feels that their rights have been infringed, they may need an advocate to assist or support them in addressing the situation. Whether the infringement is real or perceived, it still should be dealt with. For example, it their right to personal safety and security has been infringed, they have the right to protection and legal remedies.

13. How would you ensure you maintained client confidentiality when conducting advocacy on behalf of clients?

By ensuring that information is disclosed to relevant people only.

Task 2:
Read the following case study and write an Action Plan to address the advocacy needs.

Case Study 1
Arthur is 67 and has a mild intellectual disability. He wants to live independently but for most of his life he has lived in an institution.
Since the institution closed down four years ago he has lived in a residential setting with four other people. He enjoys reading and doing household chores and spending time with his sister and her family. You are a support worker in the residence and believe he could make a go of living independently with minimal support. The house supervisor disagrees with you and refuses to give it any consideration.


Content of Plan:
The needs and/or rights being infringed or not met.
Arthur has a right to live independently and this right should be respected as far as possible. By refusing to him to live alone, there is infringement of his need. The goal of this advocacy action is to demonstrate the plausibility for Arthur to live independently.

Arthur can be allowed to live by himself by first of all addressing his key areas of need. This will involve a full assessment of his cognitive ability, physical abilities and ability to integrate with society. From there on, Arthur can be increasingly trained to do more and more house hold chores by himself including his personal hygiene. Once we get to the point where development as far as possible, we can now assess the level of support that Arthur would need. It might be as well that Arthur’s family will be able to provide this support. This will require Occupational Therapist, psychologists, workers, nurses, doctors and legal guardian to make this decision.
An Occupational therapist will monitor and assess Arthur’s ability to live alone, psychologist will assess his mental well being while nurses will assess the medical support he will need. Carers will provide information about his behaviour and needs as witnessed from working with Arthur.
From here on, Arthur can go live with his family for a month with a care worker coming in during the day to provide assistance where necessary such as going shopping or doing community activities together. Once a month has passed, another assessment can be carried out to determine progress. If a sufficient level of progress has been made, Arthur can move out on his own and go live on his own with the support of a worker. Every decision point will involve Arthur’s input and his legal guardian to ensure that his rights and interests are protected. A family legal guardian will be pivotal in the decision making process because they will represent Arthur’s best interest.
If it turns out that Arthur cannot live as independently as he wanted, either more care workers support will be provided in his new home.