City & Guilds Level 4 in Independent Advocacy

As an Independent Advocate, you will serve as a voice for a wide variety of different individuals: older people, young people, individuals with mental capacity issues, people with mental health concerns or anyone needing support to empower them to make their own choices and have their needs respected.

The C&G Level 4 qualification in Independent Advocacy Practice is a nationally recognized qualification that allows Independent Advocates to formally validate their skills. The qualification was first introduced in the advocacy sector in March 2009 as part of an initiative to enhance standards and ensure consistency across independent advocacy services.

Developed by City & Guilds in collaboration with the Department of Health, this qualification is designed to:

• Help Independent Advocates learn how to represent an individual’s interests and support them in interacting with other individuals, organisations, and agencies
• Reflect best practices within independent advocacy
• Provide commissioners of Independent Advocacy services with a quality benchmark to improve the tendering process

Updated and revised in December 2020, the qualification enables independent advocates to learn, develop, and practice the skills required in their field.

Our Level 4 Independent Advocacy qualifications are aimed at practising Independent Advocates. It is a vocational qualification that requires candidates to produce evidence of their understanding of independent advocacy, and practice evidence showing their competence. Your qualification will consist of:

• Assignments specific to each unit
• Observation(s) of you working with a client/individual
• Case record reviews, this entails having cases from your specialist unit (s) reviewed by your assessor.

You will achieve the Level 4 qualification by successfully completing three mandatory units and one specialist optional unit.

The three mandatory units provide a broad base of knowledge and practice, with study and assessment across various forms of statutory and non-statutory advocacy. The optional units cover the roles of:

• Independent mental capacity advocacy (IMCA)
• Independent mental health advocacy (IMHA)
• Independent advocacy within adult social care
• Independent advocacy with children and young people
• Independent complaints advocacy
• Community Advocacy

Candidates will need to have cases with clients in whichever optional unit they choose.

You will have support from your assessor throughout the course. You can email your assessor directly and will have one to one support if required, this means if you are struggling with any part of the course the assessor will guide you through, discussing your concerns and helping you move forward.

For the observation your assessor will travel to you at your place of work. Where this is will depend on the single unit you are undertaking, and can be the client’s home, care home, hospital, Mental Health setting or another venue in which you support a client

We would recommend that you have a chat with an assessor if you are considering undertaking the qualification. This can be done via TEAMS/ZOOM or by telephone and is free of charge. Please contact Jane at training@carersfederation.co.uk to arrange an appointment.

The fee for all options includes the cost of registration and certification with City & Guilds (except where noted) assessor support, workplace assessor visit(s), course materials and remote assessment. There is no VAT to pay on our prices.

The qualification, consisting of three mandatory units (401,402 & 403) plus 1 optional unit costs £1,295

We have options to pay for these courses in instalments, please contact training@carersfederation.co.uk for more information.

We offer all the specialist optional units in the City & Guilds Level 4 Independent Advocacy qualification. Courses can take 18 months to complete, but most candidates complete in less than 12 months. All course materials are online and there is no travelling to venues across the country required. Unit courses have three elements:

• An assignment specific to the unit
• An observation of you working with a client/individual from your specialist unit
• Case record review, this entails having 10 cases from your specialist unit reviewed by your assessor.

You will have support from your assessor throughout the course. You can email your assessor directly and will have one to one support if required, this means if you are struggling with any part of the course the assessor will guide you through, discussing your concerns and helping you move forward.

For the observation your assessor will travel to you at your place of work. Where this is will depend on the single unit you are undertaking, and can be the client’s home, care home, hospital, Mental Health setting or another venue in which you support a client

Generally, people who undertake a single unit course will have already completed the Full Level 4 Independent Advocacy qualification. If you have not, please contact us via email at training@carersfederation.co.uk to arrange a time to discuss your options as it may still be possible to take the qualification.

The fee includes the cost of registration and certification with City & Guilds (except where noted) assessor support, workplace assessor visit(s), course materials and remote assessment. There is no VAT to pay on our prices.

One single Level 4 units costs £750-£850 (depending on previous qualification status)