Finding Your Voice: Advocacy Through Everyday Practice

This is the second in a four-part series exploring advocacy as part of everyday professional practice.

Last time, I explored thoughtful and sustainable advocacy: recognising where we have a role to play, where others need to be involved, and how we can advocate without simply absorbing the gaps around us.

This week, I want to look more closely at how we actually do it. How do we take something we are noticing, concerned about or believe needs to change, and communicate it in a way that can be understood and acted upon?

Most of us advocate far more often than we probably realise.

It happens when we explain why a client needs a particular support. When we raise a concern in a case conference. When we question whether a workload is realistic. When we document that service constraints are affecting care. When we ask a manager for additional resources or put forward a recommendation about how something could work differently.

These may not feel like acts of advocacy.

They are often simply part of doing our jobs well.

But noticing something that needs attention, and making it visible in a way that others can understand and respond to, are two different things.

That is where advocacy skills become important.

From concern to something others can act on

We can know that something is not working long before we know how to explain it.

Perhaps we have noticed the same problem occurring across several clients. Waiting lists are not changing. Reports and notes are being completed after hours. A funding decision does not reflect the level of supports we believe are needed to achieve appropriate outcomes. Team members are regularly struggling to complete essential work within available hours.

Our professional judgement may alert us that something needs attention. Advocacy often begins with taking that concern seriously enough to reflect on and explore what is happening and why.

From there, we need to consider how to communicate what we have noticed so that others can understand the issue and, where appropriate, act on it. Consider:

• What is happening?

• What is the impact?

• Who needs to know?

• And what are we asking for?

Turning our concern into a clear message is not about making it sound more dramatic or persuasive. It is about making the issue easier to understand and respond to.

The same concern may need a different conversation

One of the strategic parts of advocacy is recognising that the same issue may need to be communicated differently depending on who we are speaking with and who is in a position to influence the response.

Consider workload. We might experience the issue as: My caseload is too high. That is important information.

But when we are advocating for change, it may help to explain what the workload means in practice.

• Are clients waiting longer?

• Is there insufficient time for coordination with families or other professionals?

• Is documentation regularly moving outside paid hours?

• Is continuity of care being affected?

• Are we or our colleagues finding it difficult to access supervision or professional development?

• Is the current workload affecting retention or increasing organisational risk?

The issue has not changed.

We have simply connected it with the responsibilities and priorities of the person who may be able to influence it.

Our own role can also shape what we notice and the information we can bring to the conversation.

As an individual clinician, we might focus on what we are seeing in our work with clients: their needs, outcomes, access to care or clinical risk.

As a team leader, we may also be seeing patterns across a team or service: increasing workloads, waiting lists, gaps in service delivery or pressures affecting quality of care.

As a practice owner or manager, we may need to consider the concern alongside staffing, funding, service sustainability, professional obligations and the capacity to continue providing quality care.

Our setting matters too. A hospital, private practice, community service or education setting may have different priorities, constraints and pathways for making decisions.

Effective advocacy means understanding both our audience and our context well enough to explain why the issue matters in terms that connect with their responsibilities and what they are in a position to influence.

Sometimes advocacy is a conversation

Many opportunities for advocacy happen in ordinary conversations.

• In a team meeting, we might name an issue and ask whether others are noticing it too.

• In a case conference, we might make sure a client's needs, preferences, risks and circumstances remain visible within the decision-making.

• In supervision, we can test our thinking, consider whether we have enough information and prepare for a conversation we expect may be difficult.

• In a one-to-one with a manager, we might raise a workload, quality or resource concern using specific examples and make a clear request about what would help.

And sometimes advocacy starts with curiosity:

• Can you help me understand how this decision was reached?

• Are others noticing this too?

• What options have already been considered?

• Who else needs to be involved in this conversation?

We do not always need to begin with a perfectly formed argument.

A thoughtful question can open a conversation that makes the issue clearer.

When documentation supports advocacy

Much of the documentation we already complete in health and community services can provide an important foundation for advocacy. Clinical records, incident reports, funding submissions, emails and other service documentation can capture needs, risks, barriers, decisions and relevant information that may later need to be raised or acted upon.

Good documentation can do something an informal conversation cannot.

It creates a record.

When concerns, barriers or impacts are documented consistently, that information can be drawn on later. Over time, records can help show whether the same issue is occurring repeatedly, provide specific examples of its impact, and clarify what has previously been raised, decided or agreed.

This can provide a stronger basis for advocacy by helping us move from “I think this is happening” to being able to demonstrate what we are seeing.

At other times, writing becomes a more direct part of advocacy. We may need to document a concern, make a case for particular supports, recommend a change, or create a clear record of a conversation and the actions that were agreed.

This does not mean documenting every frustration or copying everyone into every email.

Strategic advocacy means considering when a written record will help and what needs to be captured.

After an important conversation, for example, a short email might confirm:

• This is my understanding of the concern we discussed.

• These were the actions agreed.

• This is who will follow up.

• This is when we will review it.

That is not simply administrative work.

It can be an important part of professional accountability and provide a clear foundation for what happens next.

Confidence, strategy and clear messaging

In the first newsletter, I introduced three capabilities that will run throughout this series.

This is where they become particularly practical.

Confidence: Are we prepared to raise what we are noticing, ask a question or make a recommendation, even when we cannot be certain how it will be received?

Strategy: Who is in the best position to respond? Is a conversation enough? Does the issue need to be documented? Would supervision help us clarify the concern and consider how best to respond? Is this an isolated concern or something that needs to be escalated or raised with others?

Clear messaging: Can we explain what is happening, the impact it is having, and what we believe needs to happen next?

A simple structure can help:

• Describe what we are observing. Use specific examples, information or patterns rather than assumptions about people's intentions.

• Explain why it matters. Connect the issue to client outcomes, quality, safety, workload, workforce sustainability, risk or service delivery.

• Explain what has already been tried. This helps others understand what remains unresolved.

• Make the next step clear. What are we asking the person to consider, decide, provide or do?

• Consider whether follow-up should be documented. Particularly when concerns, decisions, actions or responsibilities need to be clear.

This can be a useful way to organise our thinking and turn what we know and notice into something others can understand and respond to.

Speaking up depends on what happens next

Of course, effective advocacy is not only about how well we communicate.

The conditions around us matter too. Whether we feel able to raise a question, express uncertainty or voice a concern is influenced by how people respond when we do this.

Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety reminds us that speaking up involves interpersonal risk. People make judgements about whether asking a question, disagreeing, acknowledging uncertainty or raising a concern is likely to be welcomed or carry a personal or professional cost (Edmondson, 1999).

If we raise a concern and are met with curiosity, questions and genuine consideration, we are more likely to contribute again.

If concerns are routinely dismissed, minimised or interpreted as criticism, silence can become a very understandable response.

This is something I will explore much more closely in the next newsletter, because telling people to speak up is not the same as creating conditions in which they can.

For now, let's consider:

How can we raise concerns clearly with the people who need to know and who are in a position to respond?

Effective advocacy is not about speaking louder. It is about raising what needs attention, with the right people, in a way that makes the issue and the next step clear.

Want to read more?

Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety is particularly useful for understanding why speaking up is not simply a matter of individual confidence. Her book The Fearless Organization explores how workplace conditions influence whether people feel able to ask questions, raise concerns, acknowledge uncertainty and contribute ideas.

References

• Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

• Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley.

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