The Role of an Independent Advocate in a Young Person’s Life

Q: Cian, if someone asked you, what does advocacy at EPIC mean for you, what would you tell them? 

Cian: I would say that advocacy for me is having your own person who you can go to, to chat to, especially like around maybe being anxious around care and stuff like that. 

Considering I went and did the adoption process which took a long time, and it took a long time for me to actually process.  

Do you know so like, I was very grateful that I had an advocate to advocate for me to, for someone who I could chat to about it, and to get advice what would be the best option and to make, to just make the process nice and neat, in a way I understand.  

Q: And Joe, if I was to say the same thing to you, an elevator pitch, how would you describe the role of an independent advocate working with children and young people in care? 

Joe: Cian was my boss, and I was answerable to him. I only act on what Cian wants me to act on. And that’s a very privileged role. So, you know my job as an advocate was to inform Cian to the best of my ability and to make sure that he was aware of everything that was going on and understood it. My main role was making sure that what Cian wanted to happen was represented –  to either support Cian to represent his own voice or represent it for him in settings where maybe couldn’t be present or didn’t want to be. 

Q: Cian, why did you ask for an EPIC advocate?  

Cian: Well, I’ll, I’ll start off by saying I chose an EPIC advocate because I was getting so overwhelmed, and I wasn’t the happiest of young people. I just, I just needed someone to kind of talk to other than my mum and dad at home, while going through the adoption process. 

It was just it was harder; you know? And plus, it wasn’t right for me to have all that frustrating bottled up and I just, I said look, I need someone else to talk to and I was very lucky that my foster dad knew EPIC. I would consider myself lucky to have an advocate. It’s just someone who I could call if I had a problem. And just if I needed to, like finalise anything like he could, he could break it down into smaller sections and I’d be able to understand it a bit better. 

Q: Would you recommend having an independent advocate to other young people in care? 

Cian: I I would 100% recommend it. Cause, if you’re having problems at home and if you have like if you have a difficult understanding of different things, at least the advocate can help you, help you out, like in the hard times.  Like with myself, going through the adoption process, I kind of found it quite hard, so I would recommend independent advocacy to any young person or any young kid in care going through a hard time. 

Q: Joe, can you tell us about some of the ways an advocate might help a young person? 

Joe: There’s a spectrum of things that you might do in the role. In Cian’s advocacy journey, he wanted some someone to talk to about the process of adoption, about understanding that process and maybe why it takes time. Over a number of years, there was different pieces of advocacy work that we carried out together. We would aim to meet at least once a month. And I suppose you know a lot can happen in that month. Cian would often ring, as he received an e-mail, a letter, or an update that he wasn’t sure about. For example, there was an assessment that had to be carried out. 

Cian: Like the assessment and that time a document got lost. And so, I rang Joe up about it. I came into the EPIC office, and we just chatted about it. We managed to get the document sorted, which was good, but it just kind of meant there was a bit more of a delay and I just kind of wanted it done. 

And even understanding the process, why it’s delayed and why these things happen, get lost and things like that, my advocate helped me to understand, when you’re maybe a bit frustrated when things don’t go the way they should. 

Joe: As an advocate you can also attend a child in care review. I was there representing Cian’s views by reading a letter he wrote. It was quite clearly stated. I love the way Cian makes his points because he brings you around to make the point. He wanted to be adopted, and he wanted the process to start moving faster. And I suppose that was my role, you know, to represent that. Cian’s wishes were the only thing I was there to represent. 

Cian: It took a good bit of work and a good bit of understanding for the adoption board and the social workers to finally understand what I was trying to get across to them because I don’t think they fully understood, and they knew I was getting frustrated. 

I was very lucky that I had Joe, like, bring me to like point A to point B, all things like that. It’s guidance and support, but also, I guess that piece about making sure that your voice was being heard and taken seriously when you felt that it wasn’t. 

Q: Did you find the process of working with an advocate empowering?  

Cian: Yeah. One thing that I that I had learned is that it’s important to express yourself and it’s important that you as a young child or teenager has a voice and that you get your views and your point across. No one’s out to get you. You know, just say how you feel? And it’s, yeah, I think being involved with EPIC like as well, it helped me to be a lot more social with people and actually tell them my story of how and why this happens and how this works. So, I do think having an advocate was a very good learning experience for me. 

Q: Joe, how is the role of an independent advocate different to that of other professionals in a child in cares life?  

I suppose my time working in the care space and being immersed in it for a number of years, I learned that it is a volatile emotional space that has a lot of feelings. A lot of trauma. There’s a lot. 

Predominantly, what I found is that all people who work with children and young people want the best outcome for them. But when there are heightened emotions and feelings, we often can’t communicate properly or correctly with one another. 

I think that’s what the unique role of an independent Advocate is, you know, you have no other agenda, only to ensure that the voice of the child is heard and given due consideration.  

I think that for me, is one of the main things. I don’t work for the state, I don’t work for the parents, foster parents, or residential staff, I work for the young person. I suppose there is a trick in advocacy and for me was always getting the other adults in the room to buy into their story. 

Q: Cian, is there any standout moment in your advocacy journey with Joe? 

Cian: Two things. First of all, I’ll say the like, expressing yourself. Like I before I came to EPIC, I didn’t know how to do that. It was a Care Day project that I did. I personally didn’t know how I would feel about doing it first. And then once I met all the other young people and all the rest of the Epic team, I kind of felt like. You know what? This is important. Do you know? I was, I was respected for what I what I enjoy, and you know things like that. 

And then the other thing, then I would have to say is probably how Joe actually managed to help me do a lot of the care work and do you know what? I can understand everything.  

So I would have to say those would be probably the two most standout moments for me. 

Joe: I have one for you! Cian wrote an e-mail to his social worker. He took initiative and clearly outlined what he wanted to say. Cian is such a respectful person and he’s a lovely nature and lovely way about him. He gave a lot of time and thought to this e-mail, and he scripted it in such a nice way, and it was very clear in terms of what he wanted. 

Cian: Yeah, it was kind of pushing, let’s say. Like so the e-mail, I’m a people pleaser as I like to call myself, but one of the things is I don’t tolerate it when I’m not hold anything. And that’s one thing, one thing you know that triggers me still is that I wasn’t been told any of the information. That really just annoyed me. I’ve done all the work; I’ve put in all these efforts for this work, and I’ve done what I’ve been asked to do, and I’m not being given information back. So, I said right, e-mail time. I spent maybe 20 minutes in my room thinking of what I was going to say. I sent it and got emailed back I’d say nearly two hours later, saying right, we’ll get all this information together for you. I got the information the next day and I was happy as Larry.  

Q: Before having the support of an advocate, do you think you would have written that letter Cian? 

If I hadn’t gotten the advocacy service from EPIC, I would still have written that e-mail, but I wouldn’t have been calm with it, you know, I would have been like full on, right. This needs to be done, done, done, you know. 

Where I was just calm like. All right, this just needs to be complete. I understand this is so and so whatever. You know? Like being rude isn’t the way. Like, I mean, yeah, fair enough, you have to have a bit of a push to encourage that person to actually get onto the task that you want done. What I figured out that day is if I hadn’t come to EPIC, I wouldn’t have written that e-mail as well as I did and correct me if I’m wrong in saying that I thought it was very good, that e-mail. 

Joe: I was just very proud of Cian in that particular day because you know, Cian is a thinker, but there’s also time to take action. I suppose Cian probably needed answers and rather than thinking about it, so he said right, I’m going to look for clarity. He mentioned the timeline, that he did not get the feedback from his questions, and I thought well done, Cian, you’ve mastered self-advocacy. 

Q: Any last words of advice or wisdom? 

Joe: I suppose the thing I’d say to a young person in care is that care is part of who you are, but it will never define who you are. D’you know, it is a hard journey, but there are people and services out there that genuinely care about you. They might not always have the answers or the solutions, but don’t be ever afraid to reach out and ask for support or help or advocacy.  

Some young people find it so hard to stay in the present. I know it can be extremely difficult. Easier said than done. But, I suppose, without giving children and young people in care the right therapies and services when they need them, to process those feelings and emotions, it can be so hard to move forward in life.  

Q: That’s a really solid clear call to our government Joe, equip state agencies to deliver supports and services to children and young people in care when they need them, which might actually help young people move forward in life. 

Q: What about you Cian? 

Like, yeah, at the end of the day, I do appreciate it is a process like. I mean I classified my adoption journey as a really long Lego set. Piece it together bit by bit. You have to just be prepared of what’s coming next. Like at the start it may seem easy, but coming towards the middle and the end it’s quite difficult. Do you know? At the end of the day, it will happen, but you just, you need to have a bit more patience and I don’t think I had it. That’s one thing that I couldn’t really get over.  

I love Lego and I’ve loved it since I was young. I love building the sets, but I didn’t realise [adoption] would be like this really big set that would take four years! 

One thing I would say to the care community, people who are still in care and care leavers, don’t be panicking of what’s ahead of you. Just think straight in front, you know, don’t be worrying about the past. It’s gone, done and dusted. Just continue on, moving on straight. And another thing would be, like stick to your guns and have like a foot down on the ground.