Mid and West Wales Advocacy

How can we help?

What services we have to offer

Advocacy, Participation Groups, Independent Visiting.

Advocacy

We offer Independent Professional Advocacy Services to children and young people living in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Powys.

We also provide advocacy to children and young people aged 0-18 years who want to raise a concern or make a complaint in relation to a NHS service.

What is Advocacy?

Advocacy is about having someone to listen to you. It can help you to tell the people who make decisions about your life what you think and how you feel.

Advocacy can help you to:

get your voice heard
know and understand your rights
take part in meetings and reviews
sort things out with your social worker or carer
make a complaint.

Our advocacy service is independent – we are not part of Social Services.

Our eligibility criteria (this is the formal bit):

Looked After Child
Child in Need of Care and Support under the Social Services Health and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014
Children and Young People Leaving Care – up to 21 years of age (25 years of age if in further education)
Children and Young People making a representation or making a complaint regarding NHS services

How do I get in touch?

We are friendly and easy to talk to, give us a call on the number below.

We have easy to use referral forms for parents/carers & professionals and we accept telephone referrals too.

Children and young people – you can call the free phone number (below) and ask for an advocate – it’s that easy – no forms required!

Independent Visiting

We also have an Independent Visitor Service for children and young people who are in care but and who have no or very limited contact with their family. For more information please contact our Independent Visitor Coordinator on the office number below and see our literature here.

Participation Groups

We run three safeguarding participation groups – Eat Carrots be Safe from Elephants in Powys, Safe Stars in Ceredigion and CADW which is a regional Junior Safeguarding Children’s Board covering the counties of Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Powys.

All groups are open to young people aged 11 years and above. The groups meet three or four times a year to talk about safeguarding topics important to them and they share this information with people like Social Services and the Police to help inform their work.

The groups don’t just meet and talk. They also organise and take part in some great activities, including residential weekends, making DVDs and raps!

See Safe Stars anti-bullying DVD here >

Listen to CADW’s rap below: