Supporting people affected by brain injury

In Action for Brain Injury Week we reproduce an article from the spring edition of Connected Voice’s Inform magazine about our new partnership with Headway, which will offer enhanced support to people affected by brain injury.

We are currently working together with Headway groups and branches across the North East to develop a new specialist advocacy service which meets the needs of Headway members.

Headway is a charity set up to give help and support to people affected by brain injury. Our colleagues at the Darlington branch of Headway identified a vital gap in advocacy provision for their members. Together we have explored ways to address significant levels of unmet need.

This project is an exciting opportunity to provide Headway members across the whole of the North-East with exclusive access to specialist Independent Advocacy which would support them to:

  • Understand their rights and available choices
  • Make informed decisions about their lives and have them acted upon wherever possible
  • Have their voices heard
  • Advocate for themselves where possible

Connected Voice Advocacy has extensive experience in providing a specialist Neurological Advocacy Service. We ran the service from 2015 to 2019, funded by Big Lottery Fund. The service was evaluated over two years by an independent evaluator who wrote a detailed and highly positive report, as well as supporting service-users to make a film about the service (Fighting for your Rights).

We are keen to secure funding for this innovative service which will ensure that:

  • Service-users will be provided with skilled, expert, holistic brain injury advocacy support specific to the needs of the client group.
  • Advocates will provide advocacy support to tackle all issues that Headway members are struggling with (not just those covered by statutory advocacy roles under the Mental Health, Mental Capacity and Care Acts).
  • Headway will have a swift and exclusive referral pathway to access holistic, bespoke advocacy for their members only.

Brian Kenny, Headway North East Network Support Manager, said:

“This could be a fantastic project which may benefit the whole region.”

Jane Kingston, Manager of Connected Voice Advocacy, said:

“At Connected Voice we always welcome ways to deliver our services in partnership with others. There is so much added value in working together and this new opportunity with Headway will enable us to deliver much needed advocacy to people across the region. Together we are stronger and I look forward to seeing this partnership develop.”

Read more about Headway the brain injury association and see what they're doing in Action for Brain Injury Week.