National Advocacy Service Report 2012

The data in this report focuses on the characteristics of young people who have received advocacy support from EPIC during the year 2012. The main aim of this report is to provide a profile of this group of young people and to gain some insight into their presenting issues. This is valuable information and can be used to help inform the future development of Advocacy work undertaken by EPIC.

In addition, it can also highlight certain issues that need to be addressed by the research and policy work of the organisation, especially when particular issues are emerging for an increasing number of young people.

As this is the fourth annual report on the EPIC Advocacy Service, trends can be compared with previous years. However it must be noted that for the first time, cases are not broken down by Children’s Rights and Participation Officers /Aftercare Co-ordinator, all of EPIC’s advocates now deal with both children under the age of 18 and young people over 18.