Advocard, my 15 mile motivator

YOU PUT SOMETHING IN, YOU GET SOMETHING OUT

In my last post I said I'd write about my experiences at Advocard, the organisation I'm doing Kiltwalk for next Sunday, so here it is. I've been volunteering with them for well over two years now, so I've got a good idea of what they do, what good they do, and also what they do for me.

Finding them was one of those random strokes of luck. Although it was my wife who suggested we go in for a look around the Edinburgh Volunteer Fair, it was me who emerged from it with a new role to take on. When the basics of being an advocacy worker were explained to me it just felt like it clicked with some of my own skills from my professional life, albeit with a very different application.

People with mental health issues often struggle to make their voices heard, especially when dealing with any form of officialdom. They may have difficulty in expressing themselves, or lack the confidence to stand up for themselves, or find they are too easily ignored. An advocacy worker can help them express what they want to communicate more effectively, help them to find, or sometimes act as, their voice.

That can take many forms. Writing letters or emails on their behalf, making phone calls, helping them to complete complex forms. Sometimes just listening and helping someone to organise their own thoughts is all they require. Although many of our meetings with service users take place in the Advocard office on Leith Walk, we also make home visits for people whose health issues, physical as well as mental, make it difficult for them to come to us. At other times I will be going along to the doctor, the psychiatrist, to meetings with social workers or housing officers, to MP surgeries and benefits offices. Anywhere someone might feel uncomfortable, challenged, inarticulate or even threatened.

Advocacy can be a tricky concept at first, but I was given a good deal of training before being unleashed on the public. I'm not there to give advice, but I can help someone to understand their options and priorities better. I'm not a carer, or a friend, or there to try and manage the service user. There are other organisations out there for those things. I am there to help someone have confidence that they will at least be heard, that what they want to say is put across in a clear and intelligible manner, and when asked for information they are able to provide what's required.

Although there are several themes that crop up frequently, such as complaints about poor housing or feeling ignored by the medical profession, the one thing an advocacy learns very quickly is that every situation is different, every person I see has different problems to the last. Mental illness can affect anyone, and I've found myself working with a lawyer, a university lecturer and software developer. But a lot of the people we see are from the more vulnerable sections of society, often too ill to work, frequently with wider health problems. They have a huge range of conditions too. Some can explain themselves well, but with others their illness makes it difficult for them to give a coherent account of why they've come to see us. Patience and sharp listening skills are called for!

Similarly the home visits may take me into parts of the city I might not otherwise find myself in, districts that are in sharp contrast to the image Edinburgh presents to tourists and festival-goers. But I've also found myself going out to a flat that must have been worth around a million. Like I said before, anyone can be affected, and there's no 'profile' of a 'typical' Advocard user.

As an ex civil servant I think I bring something useful to the role. Obviously I'm going to be comfortable with some of the jargon officialdom sometimes confronts people with, and filling in long and complex forms is second nature to me. But it's having been a business analyst I often find most useful. If someone wants to make a complaint I need to understand the sequence of events that led up to problem, but often the person I'm talking to isn't able to relate their story in a linear fashion, or an awareness of which facts are relevant. Being able to create a timeline out of a jumble of words becomes a handy skill to have....

And I think, as an ex-bullshitter, I'm pretty good at spotting when someone is doling it out.

Why do I do it? Well, I suppose in part it's that well worn and nebulous cliché of "giving something back", a sense of doing some good in the community. Not that it's always clear if I've been of any assistance, but that's the nature of the job.

It's also about the sheer variety of situations I find myself dealing with, trying to understand, and the different professions and people I encounter. But there are a couple of specifics I want to end on, one very personal to myself, the other with a wider purview. Firstly, retirement is wonderful, but it's easy to feel like you're no longer of much use to anyone. Being able to dig up some of my skills from the past and apply them to a very different environment is what I think of as my "reminder of competence". Secondly, seeing people who are sometimes at a very low point in their lives, sometimes feeling suicidal, and hearing their background stories has helped me keep in mind that the vast majority of us are only two or three coinciding events from hitting a downwards spiral. Most of us could find a way to cope with a serious illness to ourselves or others, or the death of someone close, or redundancy, or a sudden financial burden, or an accident, or having to move home, or falling out with friends or relatives, or.... The list goes on. But change one or two of those 'or's to 'and's and coping becomes much more difficult. I've met people who were leading perfectly normal, useful lives, only for some of those events to come along at once and finding they lack the resources to cope. Maybe they don't have a decent support network, maybe they don't have savings, maybe they don't have the skills. Maybe I wouldn't.

So that's why I'm walking for Advocard. Because any one of us might need it one day.

If you'd like to help me to raise funds you can donate by clicking on this link.