Diploma in Community Services Contents Part 1: What is advocacy?

Diploma in Community Services

Contents
Part1...........................................................................................................................................3
Part2...........................................................................................................................................5
Part 3..........................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................12
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Part1
Question 1: Describe what it means to “advocate” on behalf of a client?
Advocate on behalf of clients refers to providing guidance and advice to the clients who are
accustomed to education and training, health services and public services and are given by
welfare professionals.
Question 2: How does the process differ between advocating for an individual or
advocating on behalf of a group of people?
Advocating for an individual protects supports and nurtures the value lives
of the individuals, and connects to advocacy for sharing effort, seeking
support and for developing a collective response. On the other hand,
advocating on behalf of a group is mainly concerned with changing
legislation and system, which will benefit the group within the society.
Group advocacy motivates the change of laws and government policies
(Bouvier et al. 2018).
Question 3: Describe in detail the skills required for advocacy efforts to be successful?
The skills that are required for advocacy efforts to be successful are presentation,
collaboration, and communication. The advocate also requires the skills of developing a
professional relationship. Professional relationship is necessary for an advocate to understand
the need and the issue of the client.
Question 4: How do you seek the support of others and form alliances that will
ultimately benefit your work with clients?
An advocate can ask for innovative ideas from others which will benefit the clients by
providing flexible responses to the client's needs, and for the change in operations. New ideas
and strategic thinking of the others will provide best practice lobbying strength and strategic
thinking to the clients.
Question 5: How do you know if your advocacy efforts have been successful?
Successful advocacy is identified by following the meetings and conversations with the
targeted clients, tracking individual ideas that are used by other advocates (Bowen and
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Murshid, 2016). The advocate also identifies success by improvement of the situation from
the previous condition with which the client had visited before.
Question 6: What conflicts may occur as a result of your efforts? How do you maintain
accountability during the process?
The conflict that arises as a result of the efforts is that all the decisions of the advocate may
not be considered by the subordinates. The accountability that the advocates should maintain
is regarding the trust of the clients and t5o maintain the privacy of the clients from any other
clients.
Question 7: What opportunities exist for you to advocate on behalf of the client and/or
promote the work of the service you represent?
The opportunities that exist for the advocate are to work closely with the customers, helps in
a better understanding of human nature and dilemma; it also gives the opportunity of
nurturing customer relationships.
Question 8: How is representation and advocacy, different from decision-making on
behalf of a client?
Representation does not make any decision based on the client, whereas advocacy suggests
the appropriate means after understanding the issues and the needs of the clients (Carroll,
Cornford and Bosco, 2018). Decision-making is the ultimate process that should be
conducted by the client individually. Though, advocacy can also make decisions on behalf of
the clients.
Question 9: What processes and systems are needed to support advocacy?
A dynamic system should be followed for supporting advocacy. The processes that are
included in the dynamic processes are identifying the issue of the client, providing solutions
and supports to the clients. It also includes the process of evaluating and monitoring the
desired changes.
Question 10: List examples of community consultation and decision-making processes?
The examples of community consultation are engaging various principles into the group and
society, and collaborating with various individuals, communities and groups. The examples
of the decision-making process are combining and rational.
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