Dear Advocacy Group,
The Learning Disabilities Observatory want to find out about advocacy in your area.
We want to know this so we can find out what advocacy is going on in England.
We are asking questions about advocacy for people with learning disabilities. These questions are about the advocacy work you do, the people you help and the money you get.
However we are not asking questions about statutory advocacy- this means we are not asking about Independent Mental Capacity Advocates (IMCAs), Independent Mental Health Advocates (IMHAs) or the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS).
We know advocacy groups have done lots of good work on health and other things. We want to know if advocacy services have helped people with learning disabilities get better health.
We have been told that some advocacy groups are finding it more difficult to do this now.
We want to find out what is happening, and if there are good things happening we can share.
If we can tell people about good things that are happening, it could help all advocacy groups say why their work is important when decisions about money are being made.
Please help us by answering these questions by Friday 20 January 2012.
We will write a report about what we find. We will use the information you give us in the report. We will not say where the information comes from.
If you have any questions you can contact Hazel Roberts at the Improving Health and Lives Learning Disabilities Observatory at: h.roberts@lancaster.ac.uk.
