Advocacy Skills

It is sometimes necessary for people with disability and/or their family members or supporters, to advocate to ensure their rights and choices are fully embraced. Having a discussion around advocacy within a peer support network meeting setting is an empowering and important topic to consider.

One of the challenges of living with disability is working within a range of systems that need to be understood, interpreted and adapted for your specific circumstances. The difficulty of this process cannot be underestimated, and can be overwhelming. Here are a series of discussion points and resources on how to be the best ADVOCATE for yourself or your loved one in dealing with the system and ensuring your rights and choices are fully embraced and supported:

Types of Advocacy:

There are different types of advocacy, including:

        • Self-advocacy: taking action to represent and advance your own interests; a self-advocate is a person who speaks .pdfor themselves, and defends their own right;
        • Peer advocacy: taking action to represent the rights and interests of someone other than yourself;
        • Systems/systemic advocacy: taking action to influence social, political, and economic systems to bring about change for groups of people;
        • Formal advocacy: taking action using agencies; and,
        • Legal advocacy: taking action to use attorneys and the legal or administrative systems to establish or protect legal rights.

What types of advocacy have you used? What feels right to you? Are all important?

How to be an effective self-advocate

This requires building a solid strategy or advocacy plan and developing your advocacy skills. The plan allows you to take action in a thoughtful, focused way, while skill development ensures you are more likely to resolve the problem quickly yourself:

      • Building a plan: this involved three important steps.
          • all good advocacy starts with a good understanding of the problem. You have to understand WHAT you want before you can do anything about it. It sounds simple, right? Well, not necessarily. Sometimes the problems can be complicated to break down. It is important to keep your issues separate. Pick out the problems that are most important to you and address those first.
          • Gather information. What addition facts/information might you need? How can you gather this? Who are the decision makers that I need to influence to solve the specific problem? Are there others who can help me?
          •  Develop your goal (ideal solution) and your strategy to address problem. Think about some possible solutions to the problem/issue. What are some barriers to these solutions? What do I expect the other ‘side’ to do? Remember to consult with other people about possible options, and especially if others have faced similar problem.
      • Developing strong advocacy skills is important to ensure your rights and choices are embraced by others. The key skills needed to be an effective advocate include being able to: stay focused, properly document and keep records, and be effective across the communication method you require (which could include on the phone, in writing and in-person (@ meetings). There are many great online resources to assist.

What advocacy skills do you already have? What would you like to develop? What communication is most comfortable for you and how can you share this?

What if you cannot achieve your goal?

Sometimes, despite best efforts, you are unable to achieve your goal. If you still believe your rights and choices are not being embraced, you may need to help of government funded advocates to help you get what you believe you should rightfully have available.

Are you comfortable knowing how to find these? (hint- share resources below)

Advocacy and the NDIS

There are opportunities to access formal advocates if you believe your NDIS rights to choice and control are not being met. Remember to have a plan and follow the review and Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) process as documented on the NDIS site: https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/8572-changes-administrative-appeals-tribunal-aat

 Protecting your rights doesn’t mean violating the rights of others

It is understandable to feel frustrated when you believe your rights and choices are not being adequately respected and/or embraced. However, expressing these emotions in a dysfunctional way will likely not help your case and may leave you, and possibly someone else, feeling upset. Remember that you have a right to feel frustrated and you have a right to be heard, but also consider the way in which you can safely communicate this. Being aware of the other person’s feelings is part of being the most effective advocate you can be.

What are some ways of expressing your needs effectively?

Useful links and resources

Co-authored by Families4Families

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The information on this page is also available as a downloadable Quick Guide, by clicking below. There are.pdf and word versions.