Citizen Advisors - Turning Point

Turning Point Connected Care Report 8
1. Introduction
1.1 Overview
The aim of this report is to review different approaches to Citizen Advisor
services and to make recommendations on how future models could be
developed in the context of community empowerment, personalisation and
prevention.
People with a range of health and social care needs often find it difficult to
access information and appropriate services to support their needs. Currently,
Citizen Advisors are either professionals or local community members that help
people to access the services that they require to support these needs. An
important element of the Citizen Advisor role is holding people in services and
encouraging them to engage with services at an early stage to prevent the need
for more intensive support in the future.
A range of approaches to delivering this type of support exist. Although, the core
aim of the role is to enable clients to engage with services, the components,
target groups and locations of this approach vary widely. The rest of this report
considers the components of a number of Citizen Advisor models that operate to
support people through using and accessing services. The final chapter sets out
Turning Point’s vision for the future development of Citizen Advisor services,
which builds upon the examples discussed throughout the report.
The report is divided into 7 chapters:
Chapter 1 introduces the report and sets the policy context
Chapter 2 looks at Connected Care Navigators
Chapter 3 considers Local Area Coordination as it has been developed
around the world
Chapter 4 discusses citizen advisor type services for people with complex
needs
Chapter 5 focuses upon early intervention and prevention
Chapter 6 looks at rural citizen advisor type models
Chapter 7 summarises the findings of the review and makes
recommendations for the development of future Citizen Advisor services