As you may have been aware, NDTi supported AAA by sharing our survey and call to action last summer, seeking support and ideas to enable AAA to keep working on supporting the sector and ensuring that, as do all of us who strive to make sure that the people we support have a voice, that the sectors voice could also be heard.
After reviewing the responses and expectations of the role of AAA, the AAA steering group have had to take the difficult decision to close due to lack of funding.
We recognise that these are challenging times, with more and more people needing support and budgets being slashed, we understand the difficulty in committing funds to something that has struggled to meet our objectives and wishes for a sector supporting voice and resource.
But those of us in the steering group are acutely aware of the challenges, and as such have discussed how we can encourage closer working between organisations and look to develop links to support a common voice for the sector, with the aim of ensuring advocacy remains a key component of future legislation.
Therefore, we have agreed to establish a ‘Leaders in Advocacy’ group.
This group will welcome senior leaders from advocacy organisations and other key stakeholders, to discuss key themes and trends in advocacy and see how we can work together to support the sector through challenging times.
We are proposing the first meeting to be held in July 2019, if you are interested please contact Gail Petty at NDTi (advocacy@ndti.org.uk) and we will then look at suitable venues.
The steering group of AAA would like to thank all organisations who supported our work and also reaffirm our own commitment to the future development of advocacy.