Advocard - Volunteer Delivered Advocacy

Advocard's Volunteer Delivered Advocacy service provides trained volunteers for users of Edinburgh's mental health services living in the community.

Issues that people have needed advocacy for include:

About Us

AdvoCard is an independent advocacy service for mental health service users living in the community in Edinburgh. We are funded to be independent of other mental health services provided by the statutory and voluntary sectors. This enables us to stand alongside the person we are working with and to support them without any conflict of interest arising.

We provide our advocacy service through trained volunteer and contracted advocacy workers. The advocacy workers follow the instructions of the person they are working with to help them achieve their desired outcome.

We value not only our independence but also the fact that we continually strive to be service user led as an organisation. We have service users as members of our ruling body and encourage service users to train as volunteers.

We operate a flexible referral process. We encourage self referral as well as accepting referrals form others. There are no forms to fill in. People who wish to use the service can call in to the office for an appointment or telephone.

We do not look for a formal diagnosis and are happy that people self-diagnose. We work with people who have experience of mental ill health or difficulties such as anxiety and depression through to people who have long – term severe mental illness.

We believe that individuals should have a greater say in decisions that are being made about their care and treatment by others and support people to be able to achieve this.

Service Categories

• Advocacy : Independent Advocacy

Residency
This service is available to residents of all parts of Edinburgh

Intended Client Groups

• People Experiencing Mental Health Difficulties
• 16yrs and over

This service accepts direct self referrals

This service accepts agency referrals

Costs : the service is free.

Service Provided by : Advocard

Organisation Type : Charity/Voluntary

Service is accessible to wheelchair users.
Creche facilities are not available at this location.
A translation service is available.

Other details :

Public Transport Information:
Lothian Regional Transport Bus Numbers - 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22

Lothian Buses Site for routes and timetables.

Parking :