POhWER is a charity that provides information, advocacy and advice services across England, offering direct and local support via Professionals and Volunteers. Our core audience is people who experience disability, vulnerability, distress and social exclusion.
Our independent, free services reach individuals struggling with particular challenges in their lives. Advocacy means enabling your voice to be heard, speaking for you when you can’t and supporting you when you can.
Advocacy can help people to:
- understand their situation and rights;
- prepare for meetings;
- communicate with staff and services ;
- explore their options and choices; and
- access relevant support.
We offer the following services in Wolverhampton:
- Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA), including Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and Relevant Person's Paid Representative Services (RPPR) - This is a statutory advocacy service to support vulnerable people who lack capacity and need to make important decisions but have no representatives as defined under the Mental capacity Act 2005.
- Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA). IMHA is a free, independent and confidential service for patients subject to the Mental Health Act 1983, either in hospital or in the community, helping them to understand and exercise their rights and to be involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
- Care Act - This is an advocacy service to help people with substantial difficulty to be involved in Care Act Assessments about their care and support needs and for safeguarding processes, Social Care staff will refer people to POhWER for this service.
- Wolverhampton Health Advocacy Complaints Service (WHACS) a free, independent and confidential service for people wishing to make a complaint about care of treatment they have received from the NHS.
Our website contains more information, downloads and resources. You can also view our Facebook Page for the latest information about our services and activities.