Access to legal support should never be a privilege but with drastic cuts to legal aid and an overstretched social care system, too many people are left without help. In many cases people aren’t even aware that they have a legal right to support. Our legal rights hubs provide training, advice, casework and campaign work to empower people with health and social care needs to exercise their legal rights to access social care. They identify and bring together organisations, grassroot initiatives and residents to drive forward helpful local system change through raising awareness of common issues faced by people with lived experience.

Introducing our pioneering Community-Led Hubs in Gloucestershire and Croydon

In Gloucestershire and Croydon we are working with local partners to establish Community-Led Hubs to challenge this issue head on. Within the hubs we can help people understand their legal rights and empower them to access support. In many cases the hubs enable us to reach people who aren’t currently seeking advice but urgently need support. 

Our Multidimensional Approach 

This work has been steered by our brilliant communities team including Jacky Martel Senior Advice Co-Ordinator, Southwest, based in Gloucestershire, Jennine Bailey Croydon Hub Co-Ordinator and has included: 

• Delivering legal education 

• Referrals for Pro-bono clinics

• Increasing local voices and access to Central Government social care campaigns

• Promoting AccessAva – which is our digital service available 24/7, and offers clear and straightforward legal information and guidance, so people can understand their social care rights and get the support they need 

• Supporting organisations and people with advice and casework support 

• Reaching people not seeking advice 

• Working collaboratively 

• Identifying social care issues and trends; and 

• Informing policy and practice

The Power of Partnership  

Our local partners share hyper local information with us so that we can co-produce culturally appropriate training and information sessions. This collaboration has also helped us to highlight any missing information then work together to develop our services and information and co-produce any new content with us.  This then becomes available on AccessAva so that anyone using it can benefit from the advice that has been created. 

Our partners also host AccessAva, which is designed to guide users through social care issues step-by-step which makes complex legal rights far less intimidating and puts knowledge directly in people’s hands. AccessAva is a growing part of our work,  helping organisations reach more people, earlier, and with better outcomes.  

Although digital technology can sometimes be a barrier to access, our data demonstrates that we have had uptake from all parts of the community and from all age ranges - which goes some way to overturn the myth that older people don't use tech!  

Our hubs are an ideal place to help people who are less comfortable using digital services as we can connect them with staff and volunteers who help navigate the system with the person who wants to use it. This could be someone from within the group who is an early adopter and happy to guide others, a Secondee from a local organisation such as the BME Forum in Croydon and The Friendship Cafe in Gloucester, or one of our ‘Peer Navigators’, people with lived experience of caring who are trained by Access Social Care.

A group of people on a panel discussion chaired by partner organisation Barnwood Trust.