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Advocacy Manifesto Mental Health Advocacy Co-ordinator post at Newcastle Advocacy Centre Keep Warm, Keep Well Campaign from D o H   Click here to find out more OPAAL Conference 2009 OPAAL Press Release Speaking Up to Safeguard: (Full report) Lessons and findings from the benchmarking advocacy and abuse project, 2008-09 Written by Andrew Dunning, Lecturer in Social Policy at the Centre for Innovative Ageing, Swansea University Executive Summary Wheelchair access? That's a lifestyle choice (Full report) Lessons from a pilot advocacy service in the South West Written by Les Bright, Independent Consultant, May 2009 Executive summary OPAAL Newsletters December 2009 Newsletter Spring 2009 Newsletter December 2008 Newsletter Winter 2008 Newsletter Autumn 2007 Newsletter

July 2007 Commissioning Independent Advocacy for Older People An information and discussion paper from the Older People's Advocacy Alliance

30 April 2007 REACHING OUT: OPAAL’S NATIONAL FORUM For independent advocacy OPAAL’s inaugural meeting of the National Forum took place at the Disability Rights Commission on March 30th 2007. Twenty-one people attended representing some thirty-five organisations across England, Scotland and Wales. Organisations as diverse as Anglia Ruskin University, Regulatory bodies, NGO’s, the DRC, Age Alliance Wales, LOPSG, Action on Elder Abuse, CSIP, NPC, CPA, BIHR and Relatives and Residents Association to name just a few. OPAAL Trustee and CEO of Counsel and Care Stephen Burke chaired the day. The day was co facilitated by Helen Bowers the Director of the Older People’s Programme and Kath Parson OPAAL’s National Project Manager. The programme enabled participants to report on three main advocacy developments their organisations are currently involved in, before moving on to identify common ground, key priorities and areas for future collaboration. The day was action packed, fast paced and generated a significant amount of information shared by all participants. There was significant agreement on advocacy principles and values, a shared concern and passion for improving the lot of older people, shared agreement about the important and urgent need for advocacy, acknowledgement of the need to share information to facilitate collaboration but also shared concern about the lack of a common definition of advocacy and shared understanding of independent advocacy with older people. We agreed there is a need for a strong common voice, shared networks and contacts, need to build alliances and influence key decision makers. There is also a real need to link national activity with the grassroots, and finally agreement on the need for empirical groundwork to provide us with the evidence base to support our work at all levels. A number of actions were identified for progressing between now and the next meeting scheduled to take place in July. These will be thoroughly discussed by OPAAL trustees in May and a process identified for moving this work forward. The next meeting of the Forum will take place on July 13th at the DRC. We are very grateful for the continued support of the Disability Rights Commission in hosting us in their splendid offices in central London.

The Commissioning Framework for Health and Well-being consultation is an important recent Department of Health consultation. Patricia Hewitt Secretary of State for Health and Ruth Kelly Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government say this framework is about practical action and is for everyone involved in commissioning local services so they can work together to improve the health and well-being of everyone living in their area. The framework intends to focus on outcomes and contains two important mentions of advocacy on page 20 under the Voice section and then again on page 22 under Voice and Influence. The Framework and OPAAL's response can be accessed in our resources section.