74. Geoff Smith. What is the role of the Advocate in mental health settings?

There are many people working in our services whose role may be overlooked but which is nevertheless valuable. The role of advocate is one such and has grown in significance as we have become more aware of the power imbalance between staff and service user and the importance of amplifying the service user voice.

Geoff Smith has been a qualified as an IMHA in 2011/2012 fairly soon after local authorities provided funding for the new role as set out in s130A through to s130L of the amended MHA 2007.

He has worked extensively in in-patient and community settings since 2008 and describes his work as “humbling”.  Geoff has worked exclusively within a London Borough characterised by culturally diversity and socio-economic deprivation.  I came across Geoff on social media when he was discussing a period of difficulty in his personal life and how that impacted on his ability to perform his role and this made me realise we hadn’t covered advocacy at all.  Perhaps this is reflective of how much in the mind of service providers advocacy is?   Advocates have to walk a difficult balance of organisations being aware of them but without belonging within services to the degree that their independence is compromised.

Geoff is also a talented singer and you will be really glad if you listen to him singing Metamorphosis here, https://soundcloud.com/user-847494429/metamorphosis?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Geoff and colleagues are also raising money for the Disasters Emergency Committee and you can listen to the song War Child that they have released here, https://youtu.be/3QwCaTrIRWk

and find the link to donate to the DEC here, https://www.justgiving.com/dec