BIAS employs nine part time staff and also draws on the expertise of around 30 trained volunteer advocates.

Mental Health

Two specialist workers provide individual, issue based advocacy for people with mental health problems, supporting them through Tribunal and Compulsory Treatment Order processes and assisting them to prepare Advance Statements. Their role is to ensure people are consulted, included in discussions and decisions and listened to on issues regarding their care and treatment.

Learning Disability

A further worker specialises in supporting adults with a learning disability, particularly where they are subject to compulsory powers, ensuring that their views and wishes are taken into account in decisions affecting their freedoms and quality of life.

Occasionally, it may be that the person is unable to clearly express their wishes (due to incapacity) and the advocacy worker will try to get to know the person and any other significant people involved in the person’s life to build a picture of what the person is likely to want, based on past experience. Where there is a non- instructed element in advocacy provision, our role is to represent a person’s likely views as if they were our own and make sure that all possible options are explored on their behalf, challenging decisions or seeking justification, where necessary.

Older People

We run a project aimed specifically at meeting the needs of older people in residential care homes. (OPA –Old People’s Outreach Project). This project sits alongside our Citizen Advocacy for Older People (CAFOP) project which matches older, isolated individuals in care homes or the community with a volunteer advocate who will develop a trusting, personalised relationship with the older person and ensure, again, that the older person’s rights and wishes are respected. The volunteer will also help the older person to maintain meaningful links with the wider community.

Generic Advocacy

Advocacy for All (AFA) is our generic advocacy service and provides issue-based, short term advocacy via a trained volunteer. Together with the individual, the advocate explores varied and complex issues, including NHS complaints, care in the community issues, homelessness, access to care/carer assessments etc.

In addition to all of these, we are currently piloting two very innovative projects, unique to the Scottish Borders and, indeed, Scotland:

Young People

Our first is a Peer Advocacy project based in Peebles High School which matches excluded or isolated young people with additional support needs with a 5th or 6th year peer advocate who will help them make the transition from Primary 7 to High School or High School to further education, working alongside each other to make the school experience more inclusive and promoting young people’s rights.

We hope to be able to develop this project further by expanding into more of the Region’s High Schools in the future.

Families

Secondly, we have a dedicated worker supporting the families and parents of young people who are subject to child protection measures, ensuring that the parents are fully informed, consulted and included in decisions affecting the care of their children, make the process less traumatic.

This is an area of work we feel is of particular value and hope to expand its scope to include working with children themselves, either where they are affected by child protection issues or are involved with the Children’s Reporter/Children’s Panel.