Research and the experience of many advice agencies show that advice services are not always equally accessible to everyone who may need to use them. Some groups of people may be deterred from seeking advice on matters of social welfare law because they do not recognise that they have a problem which could be resolved through obtaining advice or because they do not know where to seek help or fear that advice services will be unwelcoming or difficult to use.
Our work in the “Developing Community Partnerships” element of the project may be of use to advice agencies wishing to improve take-up of their services by specific client groups (such as young people, members of newly-arrived communities etc.). Our findings may also be of interest to a range of organisations, voluntary and statutory, which serve the needs of a particular client group. For example, a youth organisation which offers leisure, training and counselling facilities may well receive requests from its users for advice on matters such as welfare benefits or housing. If the organisation cannot provide this advice, it may wish to develop a link with a local advice service to ensure that the service is fully accessible to its users.
The materials include examples of the work carried out with a small number of advice services and the client-focused organisations with which they worked. The methods used to improve access to advice may be of benefit to other advice agencies and to client-focused organisations. It may also be helpful for them to consider the obstacles some of the agencies encountered, and the time and resources needed to sustain the partnerships, so that these challenges can be anticipated at the outset. The documents include examples of formal or informal agreements between advice agencies and partner agencies which can be adapted to define the relationship between the organisations and their respective roles and obligations.
We worked with 5 advice organisations which served a defined geographical area or client group. As part of the preliminary assessments for all agencies taking part in the pilot exercises, we asked agencies to identify any particular client groups who were not using their advice services. We then worked with each advice agency to identify a “partner” organisation in their catchment area (e.g. a youth group, community organisation) whose users were drawn mainly or exclusively from the client group to be targeted. We then devised the most appropriate methods of establishing a relationship with those “partner” agencies: e.g. providing an outreach advice service at the agency’s premises; developing a suitable method of referral; arranging meetings with the service and its users to ask about advice needs and any difficulties they experienced in seeking or obtaining advice.
