Our primary concern is health, safety and wellbeing: of people who use our services, of our staff and volunteers, and of everyone that we encounter in our work.

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We are carefully following government guidance on the response to coronavirus.

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We aim to continue to provide our services to people, where this is:

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• practicable

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• consistent with government guidance

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• consistent with our concern for people’s health, safety and wellbeing.

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We have put in place specific measures to ensure we can continue to support our advocacy partners, staff and volunteers as the situation develops and changes.

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These include:

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• internal management team response and action plan

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• activating our Business Continuity Plan

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• supporting and protecting our staff and volunteers

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• enabling and requiring members of staff to reduce all unnecessary in-person contact

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• providing continuously reviewed guidance to our managers and staff on when and how we can maintain services, and the priorities for this

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• consulting closely with public bodies in the way we provide our services and how clients are supported at this time.

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PRIORITISING ADVOCACY

• We are prioritising work to ensure that we can focus resources on those with the greatest advocacy need. We will use our priority policy list to allocate referrals and active cases.  

• We are prioritising safeguarding work and IMCA for decisions about serious medical treatment; followed by work related to detention and other critical decisions.  

• Some lower priority work will only be done if we have capacity and can maintain social distancing, but this will be constantly reviewed.  

We will prioritise the services which we provide. This prioritisation list will ensure that we can focus resources on those with the greatest advocacy need. Managers will use this as a set of working priorities from now onwards.

USEFUL LINKS

Staying at home

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-homeguidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

Social distancing https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-andfor-vulnerable-people

At Risk Groups https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html

Mind Support with Mental Health

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

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https://corona19.vast.org.uk/

telephone line will be live from 9am on Monday, March 23. Residents or organisations can fill in an online form or telephone the helpline to state whether they are able to offer help or would like to access some support.

Some of the support options #StokeonTrentTogether is aiming to provide include:

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• food and essential items

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• advice and support

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• learning and education

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• practical help at home

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• social wellbeing

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