Our values
Advocacy Action is a values driven organisation.
We believe in celebrating our values, and we believe that they can have a continuing positive impact on our work. We will work on these values and develop practical ways that we can use them to support our drive for improved services.
Our values are:
People and Communities - Self Advocacy - Social Enterprise
Independence - Sustainability - Quality - Equal Opportunities
People and Communities
There is a great value in every individual, and a great value in the ways people gather together in friendship and mutual support - also known as community.
Too often today people are undervalued because they don't fit into the norms of society. There also seems to be a constant drive to get more out of people for less, and levels of stress and ill-health are rising apace. Ironically, by making many people ill, this drive for productivity often achieves the opposite result - and then they are blamed for failing!
There is another way though. If people are given proper support they can regain their confidence and self-esteem and they can make valuable contributions to society. We can see this in the success of the many social enterprises based on the work of people who have sometimes in the past been seen merely as a burden on the state.
Self Advocacy
We are all self advocates whenever we stand up for ourselves, whatever our status in society. Good advocacy work always aims to support self-advocacy, and Advocacy Action will extend this principle to everyone it possibly can. This not only includes all the vulnerable people our members are already working with, but especially all the people working in advocacy across the District, paid or unpaid, now and in the future.
We will value every individual for who they are, and we will respond to their individual support needs to give them the strength to take more control of their lives and contribute to the well-being of those around them.
Social Enterprise
Advocacy Action is enterprising, and we have social concerns at our heart. So we have set up as a social enterprise, and we are proud of our position in the tradition of the friendly, cooperative and mutual societies.
Like the people we work with, we don't want to be a drain on the state, and we know we have valuable skills and resources to offer. We will ensure that we work ethically and responsibly, and that we take account of wider social issues in our decision-making. We will also encourage our members and partners to work in more socially responsible ways.
Find out more about our legal status here.
Independence
Advocacy Action primarily supports independent advocacy (although we are open-minded about good opportunities). The principle of independence, or freedom from conflicts of interest, is well established in the advocacy field. We feel it is vital that Advocacy Action sets a local standard on this issue. We are setting up legal and management structures that will support this, and aiming to get most of our funding from independent sources outside the local service providers.
Sustainability
All the work Advocacy Action does will aim to be sustainable. This means that it will be able to keep on having a positive effect after the initial work has been completed. We will develop procedures to enable us to assess the sustainability and environmental impact of all our activities. We will try to set an example for our partners and help them to follow our lead.
Quality
Through the Good Practice Standards we are developing we hope to make a practical contribution to quality assurance for local advocacy projects, and we will consider adopting appropriate external quality standards for our own work.
Equal Opportunities
Our commitment to equal opportunities is closely related to valuing people and to our other values. We reproduce our equal opportunities statement here to underline this commitment.
Advocacy Action is committed to actively opposing all forms of discrimination arising from gender, age, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, physical health or disability, sexual orientation, record of mental ill-health, HIV/Aids, appearance, class, marital status, responsibility to dependants, record of unemployment, homelessness, or religious or cultural beliefs, except where those beliefs contradict any part of this equal opportunities policy. Advocacy Action will challenge and combat discrimination through its employment practices, project work, and other activities.
Find our full Equal Opportunities Policy here.