Brief History

Powerful Partnerships is a citizen advocacy organisation. We are a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. We were set up in 1995 to support people who were leaving Gogarburn Hospital in Edinburgh to live in the community. We have developed experience of working alongside people who have been marginalised by society and excluded from community facilities. Our funding came to an end in September 1999 when the hospital closed. At that time continuation of citizen advocacy was not seen as a priority. Reality now tells us that people encountered even more difficulties after leaving hospital and this situation continues today eleven years after the first people left under the reprovisioning programme.

Since its inception Powerful Partnerships has supported the concept of independent citizen advocacy. At present, our aim remains the continuation and expansion of the provision of citizen advocacy to support people labelled as having learning disabilities throughout Edinburgh, including the health care and rehabilitation houses within the Learning Disability Service in Edinburgh which includes the William Fraser and Greenbank Centres. Two project workers are in post that find, prepare and support advocates and match them with partners and then support the partnerships. There is also a part-time Manager and a  part-time Office Manager. We have a voluntary book-keeper and two part-time facilitators who run the Partners Committee.

Powerful Partnerships helps to provide initial guidance and assistance for citizen advocates. This enables the project workers to match a member of the public with someone who is labelled as having a learning disability to provide support.

Key Features of Citizen Advocacy

Citizen advocacy partnerships should:

•    Be long-term
•    Be locally based
•    Promote community involvement
•    Promote social inclusion
•    Help people to help themselves
•    Develop confidence and self-esteem; and
•    Encourage expression of opinions on the decisions being taken which affect partners' lives.

Most importantly, they should empower and safeguard the individual.

People often live all their life in the same community and yet still are excluded. How does someone live in the community without really being part of it?

In many ways, the move from institutionalised to community-based services has created new challenges for our beneficaries; challenges much harder to identify, but just as effective at keeping people with learning disabilities excluded from their local communities. The stories advocates and partners have to tell show that by just being there, spending time with someone and helping them to be included makes a huge difference. An advocate can achieve much on behalf of their partner by doing what may seem very little.

A citizen advocate is an ordinary member of the public who wishes to be included in the life of someone labelled as having a learning disability. Advocates help to improve the quality of their advocacy partner’s life by standing alongside them, helping them to speak up or speaking on their behalf when necessary. An advocate helps people with learning disabilities to be seen and to be included in their community and in everyday life.