National Advocacy Service Report 2018

This is the tenth annual report on EPIC Advocacy cases, the first of which was in 2009. The number of Advocacy cases has increased substantially over these ten years – from 61 in 2009 to 653 in 2018. During the year 2018, there were eight Advocacy Officers in EPIC, two in each of the main regions: Dublin North East; Dublin Mid Leinster; South; and West. Therefore, on average, each EPIC Advocacy Officer dealt with 82 cases throughout the year, which has increased from an average of 73 cases in the previous year 2017, when there was a total of 589 EPIC Advocacy cases. In 2018, there were 395 Referrals to the EPIC National Advocacy Service. This number had fallen slightly compared to the previous year 2017, when there were 434 Referrals. However, between 2016-17 there was an increase of 17% in the number of Referrals from 370 to 434 respectively.

The data presented in this report will help to inform the future development of EPIC’s Advocacy work. In addition, the issues raised will contribute to EPIC’s policy work by helping to track emerging trends in presenting issues being experienced by young people and individuals who receive support from EPIC’s National Advocacy Service.