Welcome to Island Advice Centre

Aims

Island Advice Centre is a generalist advice agency serving users in the E14 area. We provide a free, independent and confidential advice service. You can contact us by

• attending one of our drop in advice sessions
• ringing our telephone advice line

If your enquiry will involve form filling or taking further information/action on your behalf you may be offered an appointment. If you cannot make the appointment time offered, it is important that you let us know in good time by phoning our telephone advice line and leaving a message for your caseworker - this allows us to plan our work effectively and give your appointment to someone else if necessary.

We can give advice about welfare benefits to appeal tribunal and Commissioners appeal (specialist adviser funded by LSC), housing and debt (general help with casework quality mark), immigration ( OISC exemption - general help with applications for variation of leave, entry clearance or leave to enter or remain and with applications for nationality and citizenship under UK law only), and we give basic advice on employment issues, consumer problems, relationship breakdown and general legal issues. Where we are unable to take on a case or give detailed advice, or if we are unable to deal with your case for any reason and there is an appropriate alternative agency that can help you, we will refer your case elsewhere.

Island Advice meets the quality assurance standards required by the Legal Services Commission and the Community Legal Service in terms of case recording standards and worker's qualifications. Your case may be dealt with by a paid worker or a volunteer, in all cases it will be supervised by a fully qualified supervisor and you will told who is dealing with your case and who is supervising it. We will confirm our advice in writing and keep you informed of all action taken on your behalf. Where there are limits on what we are able or willing to do, this will be explained and any options discussed with you. Our service is free, but unless your case is being dealt with under our LSC contract you may have to pay additional costs such as fees for medical reports.

We can provide debt advice to users outside the E14 area (phone telephone advice line to book an appointment).

We can also provide advice to clients who are outside of the E14 area if they are homeless (including when housed in temporary accommodation by LBTH) and who have a local connection to the E14 area.

Drop- in Sessions - No Appointment Needed

Telephone Advice

You can leave a message on the above number at any time and an advice worker will call you back.

Confidentiality

Wherever possible you will be interviewed in private, and your agreement will be sought where this is not possible. We will not discuss your case with people outside the centre except where you have agreed to this and your case records will not be accessible to anyone who is not employed by IAC. Please note the exceptions to this for LSC funded cases and those checked by the OISC for quality of advice and procedural matters. We may collect information from you including names, addresses, dates of birth of family members, details of income and savings, national insurance number and any other information considered by the advice worker to be appropriate and reasonable to progress the case. This information will not be passed to outside agencies without your implied consent. You will be asked to sign a form of authority, which acts as a consent to information being held and as authority to contact other agencies on your behalf on the understanding that we will always act in your best interests. We keep your case records for 6 years. You have the right to see your file but we may require notice. All our workers have signed a confidentiality declaration.

Equal Opportunities

We recognise that many individuals/groups are disadvantaged and discriminated against, and believe that all people should be treated with equality irrespective of age, race/ethnicity, immigration status/nationality, disability/illness, HIV status, sexuality, religion or gender.
To this end we have an equal opportunities policy that shall apply in all our dealings with staff, Management Committee, users and other agencies we liase with.

We are committed to delivering services that are accessible and recognise the discrimination that people face in accessing services particularly due to disability or language.

Island Advice Centre will introduce measures to combat all direct or indirect discrimination in our employment practices, service delivery and user behaviour. We aim to provide home visits to clients who are unable to leave their home due to disability and interpreters for clients unable to speak English.

We have a complaint procedure that can be used if you feel that our service has not met with these aims: see below.

Complaints Procedure

We aim to provide a high quality service to our clients and will encourage you to express any dissatisfaction so that we can improve our service. We describe a complaint as any expression of client dissatisfaction whether verbal or written.

If you wish to make a complaint, you will be asked to discuss the matter or write to the caseworker concerned, or you will have the option of taking the matter up with the Centre manager or chair of the Management Committee if you prefer.

Depending on the nature of the complaint and your own preference, your complaint will then be responded to in writing by the worker, manager or Management Committee Chair within 14 days. If you are still dissatisfied, you will be given a complaint form in order to take the matter further. You should complete this form and return it to the Chair of the Management Committee who will respond within 14 days. If you still wish to take the matter further at this point, you should contact the Chair to arrange for a mutually agreed independent person or agency to look at the complaint. This may be a local councillor, FIAC (Federation of Independent Advice Centres) or another appropriate agency.

If the centre is found to be at fault, or that the complaint is justified you will be given a written apology or other appropriate response such as changing our policies/procedures.

Management and Staffing

Island Advice is managed by a voluntary management committee made up of local people who have an interest in what we do. We are keen to encourage service users to join the management committee; this would involve attending quarterly meetings and discussing services with the workers. If you are interested in this, please phone for more information, if you are unable to make this sort of commitment you would still be welcome to become a member, attend Annual General Meetings and participate in the election of the management committee.

Current staff include:

Jo Ellis (jo@island-advice.org.uk) - responsible for day-to-day management of the centre; welfare rights, housing and debt casework; qualified supervisor

Stephanie Dickinson (steph@island-advice.org.uk) - LSC franchise caseworker on welfare rights cases, qualified supervisor

Tabitha Draper (tabitha@island-advice.org.uk) - volunteer co-ordinator responsible for running drop-in and telephone advice sessions

Waziullah Mir (wazi@island-advice.org.uk) - bi-lingual advisor (Bengali and Sylheti speaking)

Moydul Hussain (moydul@island-advice.org.uk) - centre administrator.

Celia Hal (celia@island-advice.org.uk) - Debt Advisor

Julie Hodge Allen (julie@island-advice.org.uk)- Finance Worker

This page designed by Roger Jones © 2002