National self advocacy gathering

With the help of the North West Regional Forum and NWTDT / Pathways team in February Self Advocacy groups from across the country got together.

This convention ran alongside the North West annual self-advocates conference.

About 40 people came from as far away as Brighton and Sunderland (and in between) to Blackpool for 3 days working together, sharing ideas and building networks

We will share the reports and actions on this page and updates as we go along

Sunderland People First did a session on what difference advocacy makes. They asked us all to share self-advocacy groups’ work or self-advocates on a hashtag so people can start to see #SelfAdvocacyWorks – please join in if you can

Speak Up did a session on Citizen Advocacy

CHANGE did a session on peer support

Notes Reports & Presentations

Please click here to view notes on the Benefits of self-advocacy

Please click here to view the notes on the Barriers to self-advocacy

Jan Walmsley prepared a report for My Life My Choice and as part of her work sharing the self-advocacy tool kit with Alan that they developed in Wales. Please click here for Jan’s report

Gary Bourlet has written a short blog sharing his thoughts and impressions about the convention. Please click here to view

Sam Clark has written a short blog about the self advocacy convention in Blackpool in February. Please click here to view.