The Power of Partnership in Kent
Updated: Aug 20, 2021
As part of this week's Advocacy Awareness Week, we celebrate the Power of working in Partnership. Read how working in partnership with other charities in #Kent ensures the local community are supported to have their voices their voices heard and express their views about the things that matter to them.
In April 2016 multiple advocacy providers in the Kent area joined together to form the Kent Advocacy Partnership.
Led by The Advocacy People (formerly known as seAp), the Kent Advocacy partnership has now worked on over 17 thousand cases and provided signposting to many more residents from across the county of Kent.
Kent Advocacy consists of 6 partner organisations, ASSERT, CILK (Centre for Independent Living Kent), CROP (Citizens Rights for Older People), ADSS (Alzheimer's & Dementia Support Services), RAD (Royal Association for Deaf people) and The Advocacy People.
Each partner has their own area of expertise, and a wealth of knowledge and passion for supporting the residents of Kent to have their voices heard and express their views about the things that matter to them.
A huge part of the success of Kent Advocacy has come from the strong partnership approach and ongoing collaboration and engagement from advocates, clients and stakeholders. The partnership has demonstrated that it can respond when we hear that things are not working as well as they could, and as a result has adapted referral routes, triage processes, and marketing materials and introduced tools to better support clients.
The partnership meets regularly to discuss the learnings and intelligence-based insights that come from the advocates, stakeholders, clients and each other. These meetings are used to share training, best practice, talk through ideas and to escalate concerns. The Kent Advocacy Advisory Panel has also acted as a forum for highlighting gaps in provision and raising trends and concerns with appropriate organisations, such as Healthwatch. The successful partnership allows us all to react quickly to change and adapt our way of working in times such as those we are currently experiencing, through mutual trust, support, reassurance and collaboration.
The partnership continues to evolve and support each other, as well as providing quality advocacy for our clients.