some other advice services. This kind of service model - and the UKC was the first to offer it -

quickly became something that health authorities wanted to fund. It's hard to believe now, but advocacy was once considered sexy.
So the UK Coalition Advocacy Project moved beyond its original remit to become a fully fledged London-wide advocacy service, taking on more than 600 cases a year. Not bad when you consider it had only two paid staff members and the rest of the team were entirely voluntary. Hundreds of people were rehoused, or had benefits reinstated after appeal, or had care packages upgraded, after our intervention.
We were asked to help with odder things too. We've even intervened when a client's pedigree Dalmatian was made pregnant by a scruffy old mongrel, causing considerable stress to the person in question. I can't tell you what we did on the grounds of confidentiality, but rest assured it's a case that no other organisation

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would have touched with a bargepole.
So why on earth is the Advocacy Project, in its present form, going close its doors at the end of March?

UKC Advocacy managers we have known and loved: (l to r) Robin Ramsdale, Andrew Sellars and Julian Hows. Robin now joins PF as Welfare Benefits Advisor