Fabrice's story

Advocates can be life-savers. They are independent from the local authority and fighting for your rights. Fabrice tells us how he found his voice and had his life turned around.

My name's Fabrice.  I'm 17 and have been in care since I was about 10.

I was living with my uncle.  There was verbal and physical abuse - sometimes the marks were so bad that I couldn't go to school.  Eventually I went to the police and told them everything.  There referred it to social services and from that point I was in care.

It took me a long time to find the courage to go to the police. I wondered if they would believe me.  Would they send me back home and make the situation worse? I was scared.

Once I was in care I got moved a lot.  My social worker eventually became obsessed with getting me back home.  I didn't want to go but no-one paid attention.  Looking back, if I'd known about advocacy I could have had someone step in and sort things out for me.

First contact

I first came into contact with an advocate when I was 14. My social worker still wanted me to move home. Steps were being taken to get me out of care - even though I didn't want this to happen.  

My advocate asked what I wanted, what I felt was happening, whether I thought I was being listened to.

Most young people have gone through situations where they don't know who to turn to for support or advice. They might go to their social workers with a problem but the social workers say they can't do anything because their hands are tied. That's the end of the road for a lot of young people.

It's important to know that there are other services that can help. All the things my social worker never told me, my reviewing officer never told me, it all came out once I had an advocate.

Outcomes

The advocate helped me stay in my placement. The social services took me seriously.  I think when it's just a young person by themselves, social workers fob us off with big words.  Where there's an advocate who knows what they're talking about and is as experienced as they are, they can't give them no chat. That empowers the young person.

I got involved in loads of things thanks to making contact with my advocate.  All these new opportunities came up.  I'm in the Youth Parliament, I help promote advocacy services to other young people. Advocates don't just help you out until your case is done, you always have support. You can get in touch anytime, whenever there's an issue.

Sometimes I felt that my advocate was doing the job that my social worker should have been doing. Some social workers have too many cases to deal with, or their manager might be putting them under loads of pressure. The difference with an advocate is they are independent. They work purely for the young person.

Secret service

Most young people find out about advocacy by chance. It shouldn't be like that.  There should be information about advocacy in Welcome to Care packs, in leaving care magazines. Before every meeting, the young person should be told about advocates and what they can do to help.  Most young people just stumble upon the information, or never find out what it is.

I went to see a group of young people in Westminster to ask what they knew about advocacy, none of them knew.  Yet in that same meeting they were coming out with their own problems. None of them knew what an advocate was, yet they all needed one.