Mobile Advocacy

Mobile Advocacy

Mobile advocacy services typically include some combination of advocacy, safety planning, housing assistance, community collaboration, legal advocacy, and flex funding. Traditionally, social service providers have relied on people in need to find them, get to them, and to utilize services from a pre-set menu of options. The mobile advocacy approach reverses that traditional service model by meeting with survivors in the safe community locations of their choosing and building service plans around their priorities and needs. For Indiana DV programs, the exploration of mobile advocacy was driven both by issues of scarcity and by the desire to provide survivor-centered services.

In the spring of 2021, Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) invited member programs to join a mobile advocacy learning community to share resources, experiential wisdom, and peer support as they worked to implement a range of mobile advocacy services. Agencies engaged in this learning cohort have led the work to identify their training and technical assistance needs, and to determine our evaluation priorities. ICADV extends deep appreciation to the agencies and advocates who made space to build out, implement, evaluate, and to help share the stories of this service strategy. These are their findings and resources for implementing Mobile Advocacy.

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Tips for Implementing Mobile Advocacy

Below are tips and templates provided by members of the Mobile Advocacy Learning Community to help other programs with implementing their own Mobile Advocacy service delivery.

Communication

• Define “mobile advocacy” for your community. Some stakeholders may be confused about the difference between “mobile advocacy” and traditional shelter-based services. 
  • Community FAQs (Hands of Hope)
  • Press Release (Hands of Hope)
• Orientate staff and internal stakeholders unfamiliar with “mobile advocacy” to core concepts and expected changes with task changes. They are still advocates doing the core work of serving survivors.
  • Washington Coalition Against Domestic Violence MA Presentation
• Use simple and plain language messaging for “mobile advocacy” to avoid confusion and jargon.
  • St. Jude Mobile Advocacy Launch Announcement

Policy & Procedure

• Create policy and standard operating procedure to helpful sure programmatic consistency when managing the diverse needs of survivors within Mobile Advocacy.
  • P&P from a hybrid program (Sheltering Wings)
  • P&P from Mobile Advocacy only program (A Better Way)
• Update job descriptions to accurately represent new roles and tasks
  • Mobile Advocate Job Description (St. Jude)

Safety of Survivors & Advocates

• Provide consistent communication and check-ins with mobile advocates to address safety concerns proactively
• Identify safety risks with survivors.
  • “How to Contact Me” Form for Survivors (A Better Way)
  • Environmental “Risk Screening Tool” (A Better Way)
  • Client-Driven Safety Plan v. 1 (A Better Way)
  • Client-Driven Safety Plan v. 2 (A Better Way)
  • Lethality Assessment (A Better Way)

Assessment & Intake

• Discern through assessment level of need with survivors to ensure balanced caseloads.
• Create standardized intake protocols.
  • Mobile Advocacy Intake Checklist (A Better Way)
  • “Non-Residential” Intake Packet (A Better Way)

Evaluation and Outcomes

• Provide survivors with a means to provide feedback so that services can continuously improve.
  • Mobile Advocacy Service Assessment (ICADV)
  • Free Outcome Measurement Tool (iMPRoVE)

Fiscal & Funding

• Engage with funders to see where prior funding can be reallocated to mobile advocacy.
• Educate funders the importance of mobile advocacy.
  • Mobile Advocacy Report (ICADV)
• Consider how to provide concrete assistance or flex funding to survivors in lieu of being in a shelter.
  • Flex Funding Request Form (A Better Way)
  • Defining Flexible Financial Assistance (Washington Coalition Against Domestic Violence)

Survivors are telling us they need Mobile Advocacy. Expanding Mobile Advocacy will help domestic violence programs across the state increase their reach and ability to serve all survivors—particularly those who would normally never reach out or seek shelter.

Please reach out if you have questions or would like to connect with the domestic violence programs who have implemented mobile advocacy.