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One of the roles of a carer is to speak up for someone who may not be able to speak for themselves, or who may need help in getting the help or services they need.
- Person-centred care
- Advocating for someone
- Making a complaint
Person-centred care
It is important that the person you care for is at the centre of any decisions made about them.
What is person-centred care
The person you care for should be respected and allowed to choose how they live, how they are treated and the kind of services they want. This is called ‘person-centred care’.
This approach means:
- recognising that different people may want different things
- letting the person make informed choices
- respecting the wishes of the person
The Australian Charter of Healthcare Rights says people have a right to be included in making decisions about their health care.
How to give person-centred care
As a carer, you can help the person you care for get person-centred care. You are likely to know the person well, so you will be able to talk with health professionals about what they want. You can also use this person-centred approach to talk with other professionals (for example, legal services).
You can talk about anything that might affect the person’s care and plans. For example, you can talk about:
- their views, likes and dislikes
- their cultural and religious needs
- how they live
- their financial situation
Person-centred care is particularly important if you are looking after a person with disability, brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. It can help older people and those whose condition is likely to get worse to stay independent as long as possible.
Advocating for someone
Advocacy means that you speak up for someone. You may need to advocate for the person you care for to:
- make sure they get information, services or resources
- protect their rights
- make sure they are treated respectfully and professionally by services and staff
- make sure they are not discriminated against
How to advocate for someone
You can advocate in person, for example by speaking up during a medical appointment, or by phone, email or letter.
To advocate effectively, it helps to:
- collect information about the problem
- know your rights and the rights of the person you are caring for
- be clear and firm about what you want
- listen carefully to responses and suggestions, and take notes
Getting help with advocacy
If you are looking for advocacy support contact the peak carer association in your state or territory.
Some Australian Government organisations provide advice or help about advocacy. These include:
Making a complaint
Sometimes you may not be satisfied with how the person you care for is treated by others. You may be unhappy with a service or the person providing the service. If this is the case, you can make a complaint for the person you care for.
How to complain
You can complain directly to the service provider. The first step is usually to make an ‘informal’ complaint by just talking to the provider or contacting them by letter, phone or email.
It is a good idea to start with an informal complaint because issues can often be solved quickly and easily.
But if you are not satisfied with their response to your informal complaint, you can keep going. You can:
- make a formal complaint to the service – ask them how you can make a formal complaint. They will tell you what you need to do, who you need to contact, and what happens next
- complain to a government authority or agency – the Australian Government aims to make sure organisations provide fair, good quality services. You can search online for how to make a complaint about a particular service (for example, health care or transport). Some links are provided below
Getting help with complaints
Some organisations provide information about complaints processes. These include:
Have you thought about
Advocacy involves promoting the interests or cause of someone or a group of people. An advocate is a person who argues for, recommends, or supports a cause or policy. Advocacy is also about helping people find their voice. There are three types of advocacy - self-advocacy, individual advocacy and systems advocacy. The CED is involved in all areas of advocacy for people with disabilities and their families.
Self-Advocacy
- Self-advocacy refers to an individual's ability to effectively communicate, convey, negotiate or assert his or her own interests, desires, needs, and rights (VanReusen et al., 1994).
- Self-advocacy means understanding your strengths and needs, identifying your personal goals, knowing your legal rights and responsibilities, and communicating these to others.
- Self-Advocacy is speaking up for oneself!
Individual Advocacy
In individual advocacy a person or group of people concentrate their efforts on just one or two individuals. According to the group Advocacy for Inclusion "Advocacy is having someone to stand beside you if you think something is unfair or that someone is treating you badly and you would like to do something to change it."
There are two common forms of individual advocacy - informal and formal advocacy. When people like parents, friends, family members or agencies speak out and advocate for vulnerable people this is termed informal advocacy. Formal advocacy more frequently involves organizations that pay their staff to advocate for someone or for a group of individuals.
Systems Advocacy
Systems advocacy is about changing policies, laws or rules that impact how someone lives their life. These efforts can be targeted at a local, state, or national agency. The focus can be changing laws, or simply written or unwritten policy. What is targeted depends on the type of problem and who has authority over the problem (Brain Injury Resource Center, 1998).
Individual advocacy involves supporting people to exercise their rights by providing assistance to: voice concerns, access information, resolve issues or to identify available support options.
We can advocate on behalf of children, young people and adults whose situation or condition:
- impacts on their rights or wellbeing or
- places them at risk of abuse, neglect or exploitation.
This may include people with a disability, mental health concerns or other conditions that result in impaired decision-making capacity or a legal disability.
Wherever possible, the PACYPC undertakes individual advocacy with a forward focus to promote and ideally secure a response that ensures that an individual’s rights are upheld.
In both our individual advocacy and oversight work, we focus on ensuring that systems are doing what they are supposed to be doing in the way they are supposed to be doing it.
We may also advocate for an individual where we identify issues with the provision of a service that is grounded in statutory obligations, particularly where these obligations are not being met. It should be recognised that individual advocacy can be a tool to mitigate against a situation becoming a complaint.
In recognition of this, there are often situations where the Discrimination, Health Services and Disability and Community Services Commissioner will refer a matter to the PACYPC for advocacy as a means of facilitating an appropriate and more immediate response to the matter at hand.
We may be able to provide you or someone you care about with individual advocacy in relation to:
- child and youth protection services, including youth justice
- education
- housing
- mental Health
- family violence and personal protection orders or
- complex service provision needs.
Child and youth protection services
We can advocate on behalf of children and young people:
- involved with Child and Youth Protection Services (CYPS), including youth justice and particularly the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre
- who are placed in out of home care (OoHC)
- involved with mental health services, including those detained in a mental health facility.
We may undertake individual advocacy on behalf of the child or young person if requested by the child or young person themselves, or by a:
- parent
- foster carer
- kinship carer
- member of the community or
- service provider.
When a child or young person is brought to the attention of the Public Advocate, we seek to ensure that their rights are upheld in accordance with relevant legislation.
In providing individual advocacy, we seek outcomes that focus on the best interests of the child or young person. This may include seeking additional services for the child or young person, or a change in the way that services are delivered.
We will engage with the child or young person to obtain their views to the extent that this is practicable and appropriate in the circumstances.
Youth Justice
Our team visit young people on remand or sentenced at the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre on a regular basis, or at the request of the young person. This is to ensure the young person understands their rights, receives appropriate standards of care, and is treated fairly.
Young people detained or on remand at the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre have the option to contact us by telephone to discuss individual concerns. This is a free call.
Mental Health
We also support people with mental health concerns who are engaged with the mental health and/or justice systems, including through the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) and ACT courts.
We may provide you with advocacy support if you or someone close to you contacts us directly, if we believe you are in need of protection from abuse, neglect or exploitation, or if you have been referred to us by an agency, court or tribunal. We always seek to ensure that your views and wishes are known and used to inform decision-making.
Our mental health advocacy team regularly goes to ACT hospitals, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal and the Alexander Maconochie Centre to monitor the services being provided in these facilities, and we can meet with you while we are there, or at your request, to discuss any concerns that you may have.
Children and young people on involuntary mental health orders who have been admitted to hospital will receive a visit from us to help them to understand their rights and to explain the process they are involved in.
We can also attend mental health hearings organised by the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal to ensure that children and young people have their views and wishes heard, and that decisions are made in accordance with the relevant legislation.
Family violence and personal protection orders
Another important role that we have is to review and monitor domestic violence orders (DVO) and personal protections orders (PPO) and applications for orders referred from the Magistrates Court for children and young people, and any other person who the court considers to have a legal disability and therefore, as a respondent, may be vulnerable before the Courts.
We review all paperwork received to determine whether there is a need for advocacy or referral to an appropriate agency to support the person involved.
Management assessment panel
One of the PACYPC’s staff provides executive officer support to the management assessment panel.
The management assessment panel accepts referrals in relation to children, young people and adults, it exists as a last resort means by which to facilitate cross-agency service delivery for people who have a disability and complex needs, where service delivery has been poorly coordinated or inadequate, and where there is a serious risk to the person.
The management assessment panel is not involved in providing direct services, case management or complaints handling but instead offers a facilitated process where no other solution exists. It recognises the rights of individuals to access a range of health and social service providers and has been established to work with the existing government and non-government service providers.
Care coordination
We also provide executive officer functions to the ACT Care Coordinator when people are placed on a community care order by the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
A Community Care Order can be made under the Mental Health Act 2015 when:
- a person has a mental dysfunction, and
- because of that dysfunction, is at risk of doing serious harm to themselves or others, and
- where care treatment or support cannot be provided in a less intrusive way.
There is no age restriction on who may be placed on a community care order.
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