OXFORDSHIRE ADVOCACY DEVELOPMENT GROUP
(Registered Charity No: 1015858)

A.G.M.  13.7.06

Chair’s Report  April 2005 – March 2006

It is traditional in an annual report to say that the last year has been a hard working and active one but this year it is more true than ever before with many changes and challenges for us to meet, as outlined below.
Office Move – at the end of March OSTAS (Oxfordshire Short Term Advocacy Scheme) moved from its base with the Mental Health Resource Centre in Paradise Street to join our other two schemes CAPOLD (Citizen Advocacy for People of Oxfordshire with Learning Disabilities) and ADAPt (All–Age Dementia Advocacy Project) at Barton. Though we were sad to leave Paradise Street where the support of Jon Hyslop and his team had been much appreciated, the advantages of having one office base is already being felt.
Community Fund good news - we were delighted to learn in December that we had been successful in securing a three year lottery grant to enable us to expand the CAPOLD service to offer advocacy to some of the most disadvantaged citizens in our community – people with learning disabilities in hospital care, many of whom are detained under the Mental Health Act (more of this later in the report).
Lord Chancellor’s visit – although this visit in September was relatively brief we were enormously encouraged by the fact that the Lord Chancellor had chosen to visit OADG as a mark of his interest in grass roots work which supported and promoted the rights of citizens to be heard and their views taken into account whatever their circumstances. It was a lively meeting with Lord Falconer asking some very perceptive and searching questions to which our staff responded with their usual aplomb!
Seminar at Unipart – as part of our drive to give OADG a higher profile we hosted an information giving seminar to which over 100 people, who had an interest in our work, were invited. We were particularly grateful to Unipart who donated the use of their splendid conference centre to us for the occasion. Although we did not get the numbers we had hoped for, we did have an appreciative audience and were able to present the different aspects of our work, which included a lively role play by the staff to demonstrate the way that advocacy can make a difference. It also brought us some useful publicity in the Libraries and a donation for equipment.
Staff Changes – this year has seen a number of staff changes starting with Jean Ware –Morphy, the ADAPt advocacy worker who left in June. Jean pioneered this new service and established its firm foundation for which we were very grateful. Lesley Sutton who replaced Jean brought with her a rich background of experience, both practical and academic in the field of dementia. We were very sorry to see Lesley go in December for family reasons and as she had been a committed, imaginative and tenacious advocate. We are however delighted that she is keeping in touch in a voluntary capacity. We were fortunate enough to appoint Ginny Black to the post bringing a wealth of experience with her including having been a charity administrator, a human resources assistant and an English language teacher in Africa and Europe. Ginny also had been a regular OSTAS volunteer for many years.
At the end of March we were able to appoint Anne Ashley as a second worker for CAPOLD to develop the new hospital based service. Anne also has a great deal of experience to offer including working for Oxford Brookes as a community liaison officer, teaching and working abroad in Africa and the Pacific and is a trained counsellor and mediator. Anne will start work with OADG in May 2006.
Training – this year the training has continued to be a major part of the support offered to volunteer advocates. The regular follow up sessions have been well attended with advocates appreciating the chance to meet together and share ideas and experience. Another first this year was the tailor made advocacy course offered to the workers of the Oxfordshire Befriending Network (OBN) who are setting up an advocacy service as part of the work they do with people facing life threatening illnesses.  The six session course was much appreciated by the participants who commented on its ‘excellent quality’ (OBN AGM report) and were very positive about the way the trainers (Jenny and Helen) helped them to develop the skills and understanding they needed to set up their own service. Another new step was taken in March when it was agreed that the accreditation of the training by the OCN (Open College Network) should become an integral part of training and not just an optional extra. This is designed to give more support to the volunteers and enable them to be assessed as appropriate advocates more thoroughly. Once again our grateful thanks to Maire McSorley for her valuable support as external assessor this year.
Policies – OADG continues to revise and update its policies and we are very grateful to Keith Tibbs, an ex OADG Chair for his time and expertise when he reviewed the entire policy set and made suggestions about overlap and lack of coherence. This proved a very useful and constructive exercise.

Mental Capacity Act 2005 – OADG attended the series of seminars about the development of the new system of independent mental capacity advocates (IMCA)  required under the Act for anyone without relatives facing a major life decision either in relation to medical treatment or a move of residence. We also commented on the draft guidelines that were circulated but decided after much discussion not to tender for a pilot IMCA as the funding was uncertain and the time constraints appeared too short to be effective.

Fundraising – this continues to be a major part of our activity with a dedicated sub group regularly researching possibilities and sending off applications. We have been successful in achieving the community fund grant, a grant from Awards for All and are very grateful to Oxfordshire County Council Social and Community Services department who continue to be our primary supporter and without which we would not be able to sustain an organisation from which to attract other funding.

Quality Assurance – responding to the need to be able to assure our membership and our funders of the quality of the service we offer we have been developing an effective monitoring system through the PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Monitoring Small Organisations). A seminar was held on Dec 6th led by a team of trustees and staff and this work is being developed into a tool to suit our organisation.
Publicity  - this is central to our service and much work has been put into developing a new set of eye catching leaflets and launching our Spring newsletter. We have just launched our website www.oadg.org.uk which is very exciting. It is still in the process of being ‘tweaked’ so any comments on it’s content will be gratefully received.                                  
News from the Schemes –  the co-ordinators will be presenting verbal reports at the end of the AGM meeting and written reports are available. The three schemes – OSTAS - co-ordinators Jenny Lewis and Naomi Karslake: CAPOLD - co-ordinators Helen Bloomfield and (from May 2006) Anne Ashley, and ADAPt - advocacy worker Ginny Black are managed centrally by Nigel Parsons. The staff have also been actively involved in the development of OADG’s policies and guidelines.
OSTAS – this has been a year of consolidation and development. Thanks to the work of Jenny and Naomi, there has been 50% increase in the number of referrals taken, the number of advocacy partnerships is also high and there has been a steady stream of volunteers undertaking training. The issues dealt with were wide and various within a range of situations relating to housing, money, legal positions etc as detailed in the report.
CAPOLD – again there has been an increase in the number of new partnerships supported, together with the continuation of ongoing support for existing longer-term partnerships.  Helen has undertaken a number of partnerships herself in an effort to reduce the waiting list, which is a result of increasing demand coupled with the perennial difficulty in recruiting volunteers for longer term work. It is to Helen’s credit that CAPOLD has 22 active partnerships on her books. Advocacy in this area is time consuming because time has to be spent on every enquiry finding out if the person wants an advocate, and if advocacy is appropriate, before any advocacy work can be started. An exciting move forward has been development of a ward based service for people in learning disability hospitals, of whom many are detained, a gap which we have long been concerned about.
ADAPt – the fact that this service has continued steadily to increase despite the staff changes is a real tribute to Lesley and Ginny also to the sound foundations on which the service was built. Through Ginny’s work, there  has been an increasing awareness of the need for advocacy in hospital and residential care and of people with dementia’s right to be involved in decisions about their own care whatever their ability.
Trustees – we were delighted to gain 3 new trustees this last year – Jill Parker, Rob Eachus and Katharine Krebs all of whom have brought their particular experience and skills to OADG ranging from business skills, teaching, learning disability service provision, management skills and experience as an OSTAS advocate. We were sorry to lose Dr Jim Watson due to pressure of work and Janet Groom who retired at the last AGM as both  had been hard working and committed trustees Janet since 1998 and Jim since 2003 .We wish them both well.
Roy Lewis – in April last year we were all enormously saddened by Roy’s death, Roy had been a founder member of OADG and its Vice Chair for many years. His unfailing support and good humour, his deep and personal understanding of disability and his wide Oxfordshire network left a big gap for us. Our sympathies go to his family particularly Myrtle and Kay who have given us so much support themselves.

Thanks – the trustees have many people to thank - all our volunteer advocates who work with such commitment, energy and vision to provide a service, which we think goes to the heart of human rights – the right to be listened to, taken into account and to be treated with respect; our staff who work with such enthusiasm, creativity and patience and our manager Nigel Parsons who sees to the overall co-ordination of our work and tirelessly supports the trustees. On a personal note I would like to thank the trustees for their unfailing support and hard work and in particular Hilary Pogge (Vice Chair), Patricia Stanley (Secretary) and Mervyn Stanley(Treasurer). You couldn’t ask for a more supportive team and I am very grateful.

A.G.M. 14.7.05
Chair’s Report April 2004 - March 2005