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How successful are outreach approaches and advocacy In engaging people who are socially excluded? In what ways might they not succeed? Illustrate your answer with examples from Block 3. In this assignment I am going to outline outreach and advocacy services that are available to people who are socially excluded, and demonstrate how those services are successful in engaging people. I will also discuss the advantages and limitations of outreach and advocacy.
To answer this question I am going to use examples from Block 3. Outreach is a frequently recommended strategy, designed to improve services to undeserved population, reaching out and assisting through personal contacts with people, who are unaware of services (Wiles, 2010,p. 99). Advocacy Is an essential component of outreach. “Advocacy means helping people to say what they want, represent their interests, safeguard their rights, and obtain services they need” (Wiles, 2010,p. 109).
Social exclusion is the result of series problems affecting people or places such as unemployment , discrimination, poor housing, lack of skills, low incomes, crime Issues, Ill health and family breakdown ( Social Exclusion Testators, quoted In Wiles, In consequences, the place where we live can have a significant impact on our health and our life’s opportunities. Social exclusion describes how people are left out of/or prevented from participating in processes that lead to growth, improved welfare and development.
To promote social inclusion, decrease the inequalities and bridge the gap between deprived neighborhoods and rest of the country, in 2001 the government’s neighborhood renewal strategy produced a new plan called New Deal for Communities across thirty-nine severely deprived neighborhoods In England One of the New Deal for communities programmer was set up in Thrill. Thrill met all of the requirements to apply for neighborhood renewal because this area was defined as the one with high level of deprivation.
The government had five essential targets: to improve people’s health, to increase educational achievement and skills, to improve housing and the physical environment, to increase the number of people In work and reduce crime (Social Exclusion Unit, quoted In Wise,2010, up. 39-40). Hey are aware of issues and people’s problems that they are facing in their community. In addition to their expertise the community leaders and groups they represent can provide a bridge to gain the trust of the local residents who will benefit from outreach.
Residents and agencies should be involved in working together to find possible solutions and evaluate the type of outreach that would be most beneficial to community. As a result of collaborating together, programmer Thrill Plus You was able to set targets to ameliorate local people’s health: reducing the number of teenage regencies, encouraging healthier eating, supporting people to give up smoking, improving the physical and mental health of residents and improving the access to health services (Thrill Plus You, quoted in Wiles,2010, p. 0) Consequently Thrill residents had their lives transformed and got the chance to improve their health. Pauline Vaughan was one of the successful example. Several years ago, Pauline had a stroke and in consequences, she lost her confidence and her health wasn’t good as well. She was looking for information on disabilities from Thrill Health and Well-being Project and after time she became a volunteer with Thrill Health and Well-being Project (The Open University, 2011).
Pauline was also attending ATA chi classes which were part of broad range of health activities available in Thrill and she pointed out improvement in her health (The Open University, 2011). According to the survey, Thrill Plus You achieved its goals. People started eating healthy food, number of smoking people decreased, more people was taking part in physical exercises and got better access to health services (Thrill Plus You,quoted in Wiles,2010,p. 110). However some challenges can occur.
People may not want to be engaged in voluntary work due to number of factors: they think that they do not have experience or skills, they do not have the time (C.V.; WARS, quoted in Wiles, 2010,p. 51). Pat Taylor describes some barriers within partnerships: defining the agenda, being patronizing and using Jargon, ignoring or dismissing resident’s culture, ticking boxes, not taking resident’s views seriously (Taylor, quoted in Wiles, up. 53-54). Another limitation could be the time and money.
There is very important to set a strategy that community will be able to continue once the project is over. Provide training and teach a specific skill or information to volunteers and other people from community who are involved in project. Despite the efforts of neighborhood renewal projects, neighborhood-based activities do not meet the needs of everyone and not everyone have access to supportive social networks. For example, older people following to discharge from hospital might feel isolated and left on their own.
In such a cases they might need alp from care services to maintain and develop supportive social networks. Service like Age Concern was set up to help older people to access social networks that would key role, by acting as advocates in negotiations with organizations, by assisting the service user to the bank or to specialized care providers, by helping in doing shopping, by arranging the transport. For example one of the service users only because of support he got from social worker was still able to enjoy his hobby-fishing (McLeod et al, 2010).
Another example of service available to people who meet specific criteria is Family Support Service. If family is seeking up help, first of all they have to be referred by health visitor or school nurse or can refer themselves. The main aim of the work is to offer help and assistance to families and children and to find achievable goals that will be beneficial to them. Like in case of Mina All, a Bangladesh women, who is mother of two children and is expecting her third child getting the access to the project might be crucial.
Due her bad form she missed most of antenatal appointments and she has difficulties in looking after her children (Gray, quoted in Wiles,2010,up. 3-84). Therefore she was qualified to received help from Family Support Service. Family support worker helped her to manage daily routines, helped her in developing skills to play with her children, accompanied Mina to her antenatal appointments and encourage her to contact other specialist health care staff (Gray, quoted in Wiles,2010,p. 88).
It is evidential that people can gain advantages from services like Age Concern or Family Support and, but both of them are time-limited and they are delivered only for people who meet specific criteria. In consequences those services are still leaving mom people out. There is still group of residents who are isolated, like people with mental ill health, disabled people. They might be reluctant and have a barriers which prevent them from using services and taking part in community activities. To deal with this problem government created outreach programmer called Community Access Project.
The main aim of Community Access Project is to make contact with people through advocacy and outreach service . People with mental health problems, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, those with language and communication aeries. The purpose of advocacy is to take into account wishes of the clients, to build trustful relationship, to encourage clients to take further steps in improving their health, to support to speak up, to make sure that client have access to information and suitable services and to promote service user independence (The Open University,2010).
In Block 3 we meet Simon who definitely suits to this description (Waddled, quoted in Wiles, 2010,up. 94-95). For people isolated like Simon, support from advocacy service is essential in engaging them in social life. In rapidly changing demographics of UK there is a huge demand for services designed to residents from minority ethnic groups. People with disabilities who are from diverse cultures are hampered by host of barriers and facing difficulties in realizing outcomes of full participation in all aspect of society.
Getting the access to diverse team of care workers might be extremely important in recognizing and meeting people’s cultural requirements. It is very beneficial when the care worker is people from minority ethnic group must give additional attention to removing engage and communication barriers and also take into account that lack of information about resources in adequate language may not only prevent people from accessing services, but it may also close doors for people who need service benefits.
In conclusion to this essay I have outline outreach and advocacy services that are available to people that are socially excluded. Limitations to comprehensive outreach and advocacy services include the lack of volunteers, language and communication barriers, shortage of care workers from diverse cultures, time and funding limited orgasm, lack of information about existing services. Services designed to meet those aspects will definitely succeed in engaging people.
Like in Thrill Plus You case they will be able to reach for socially excluded people using the partner’s expertise and community trust. David Shields, the manager of the Health and Well- being department at Southampton City Council comments on this process: ” I have visibly seen local residents take this project to their hearts, fashion it, and are taking it forward without becoming dependent on the council ” (The Open University, 2011 ). Number of words: 1534