Welcome to Scaffold Advocacy
We are a group of disability advocates helping disabled people to get the support they need from the benefits system. Our advocates and leadership are all volunteers, and the majority of us are disabled ourselves. We use our lived experience to help some of the most vulnerable people in our society to access the meagre support offered by the state. The application and assessment process for benefits such as PIP are hostile, dehumanising and exhausting to go through, and our aim is to see that no-one has to go through it alone.
We offer free training to people who want to become an advocate. Teaching them how the PIP system works, how to calculate eligibility and then ensure the person you are supporting actually gets that award. Our advocates help people to express themselves on their application forms, and where possible we attend assessments and tribunals to support applicants. Our focus is on sharing our skills as widely as possible, training more advocates and building their confidence, as the demand for our service is outpacing our capacity.
We are a not-for-profit company, we never charge claimants for our services, and any donations we receive are used for venue hire and travel expenses for both trainings and individual advocates if needed. We keep the principles of radical mutual aid at the heart of everything we do, the systems in place to "help" disabled people are failing, and we hope to redress the balance and advocate for meaningful change.