Self-advocacy
What is self-advocacy?
Self-advocacy means making sure that your desires and needs are made clear.
It means ensuring that you have the same chances in life, the same rights and the same choices as everyone else.
Self-advocacy means explaining your feelings and thoughts, and asking for what you want.
It means making sure you are involved in the decisions that affect you, and working (sometimes with others) towards finding solutions for problems.
Self-advocacy means being able to ask for help when you need it, and being willing to ask lots of questions and learn new skills.
You will also find useful sections on our page about Making Choices.
When might you need to advocate for yourself?
- When you are making changes, such as changes in service provider, or in accommodation
- When you want to have more control over your finances
- When you are looking for work
- When you are in the workplace
- At home when living with your family
- In supported or independent accommodation
- When visiting medical professionals
- Even when you are out in the community, visiting friends, travelling on public transport or shopping.
What do you need to learn?
- You need to know your rights in all sorts of areas
- You also need to understand the responsibilities you have
- You need to be able to make a plan, and to carry that out – often with the help of others
- You need to be able to understand your choices and to be able to make decisions.
Why is self-advocacy so important?
The Australian and state governments are changing the way disability services are funded.
People with a disability are now much more in charge of their own funding and how they live their lives.
To that end, the government is promoting self-advocacy very much.
One of the main ways self-advocacy is being encouraged is through the My Choice Matters website, see below.
The Headsup website has information about your rights in the workplace
The National Disability Advocacy Program
There is now a website which lists all disability advocacy services.
National Disability Advocacy Program website here
My Choice Matters
My Choice Matters is a program jointly managed by the NSW Council for Intellectual Disability (NSW CID) and the NSW Department of Families and Community Service, Ageing, Disability and Home Care.
My Choice Matters runs a website and a series of workshops aimed at people with a disability and their families.
My Choice Matters aims to develop and grow skills in making choices, developing a voice and gaining more control over one’s life.
My Choice Matters aims to help people with all sorts of disabilities to have Choice, Voice and Control over their own lives.
It is helping people gain the skills they need to manage their own funding.
Get More Skills workshops are run regularly across NSW and cover topics like:
- speaking up
- generally being in charge of your own life
- knowing what questions to ask
- managing and understanding more about a plan
- managing people
- managing money
- new ideas
The My Choice Matters website is here.
Self-Advocacy Organisations
Autistic Self-Advocacy Network of Australia and New Zealand
This organisation aims to ensure that the voices of autistic adults are heard and their rights and needs understood. Have a look at ASAN's Facebook page.
Youth Disability Advocacy Service - Victoria
YDAS is Australia’s only youth disability advocacy service for young people aged 12 – 25 years. YDAS provides one-to-one support in Victoria.
For those in other states, it has a terrific website with lot of empowering information for young people.
The Planning Your Way section is an especially useful resource for young people.
Aboriginal Disability Network NSW
ADNNSW is the peak body for Aboriginal people with a disability and their families.
The organisation helps people develop self-advocacy skills as well as helping families become better advocates for their family members. ADNNSW aims to help Aboriginal people prepare well for the NDIS.
Self-advocacy Sydney
Self Advocacy Sydney organises monthly meetings as well as training programs which help people with an intellectual disability to advocate for themselves. SAS has an office in Blacktown.
Self Advocacy Resource Unit - Victoria
The Self Advocacy Resource Unit provides resources to assist self advocacy groups across Victoria.
The I Can Network
The I Can Network is a social enterprise founded by people with autism and based in Victoria. Their aim is to mentor young people with autism and build networks across schools, universities, business and government. You can read about their work in their annual reports.
Advocacy For Inclusion – ACT
This Canberra-based groups runs meetings and training with themes of both advocacy for families and self-advocacy.
The Advocacy For Inclusion website is here.
InCharge
In-Charge is a social enterprise, a team of people offering workshops and mentoring to help others develop their own skills and ability to self manage and self direct.
InCharge works mainly in the Hunter region of NSW.
Useful Books
Ask + Tell: Self-Advocacy and Disclosure for People on the Autism Spectrum Edited by Stephen Shore
This book is a collection of chapters about self-advocacy and disclosure for people on the autism spectrum.
You can read some pages on Amazon here.
Self-advocacy
Did your son or daughter start speaking up for their own rights when at school?
Do you think they understand that they have a growing role in determining their own life now that they are growing older?
For some of our young people, parents will always have to be the main advocate for the child’s rights.
But as much as possible, parents need to encourage their young person to speak up for themselves.
Independence and living the life of your choice is very important in today’s evolving world of self-managed funding models.
We parents need to learn to let go as much as we can, and to teach as much independence and self-determination lessons to our kids as we can.
This takes time, and we might need to be patient. Make that very, very patient.
Seana S.
What is self-advocacy? Here’s how we explained it for young people
Self-advocacy means making sure that your desires and needs are made clear. It means ensuring that you have the same chances in life, the same rights and the same choices as everyone else.
Self-advocacy means explaining your feelings and thoughts, and asking for what you want.
It means making sure you are involved in the decisions that affect you, and working (sometimes with others) towards finding solutions for problems.
Self advocacy means being able to ask for help when you need it, and being willing to ask lots of questions and learn new skills.
On the Young people page we have listed all sorts of resources for young people. You might like to have a look at those as well as getting to know the major resource in NSW which is the My Choice Matters website, see below.
Autism Speaks Self-Advocacy Kit
Autism Speaks has a Transition Toolkit for parents which has an excellent section on encouraging your child to develop the skills of the self-advocacy.
Download Self-advocacy PDF here.
My Choice Matters
My Choice Matters is a program being jointly managed by the NSW Council for Intellectual Disability (NSW CID) and the NSW Department of Families and Community Service, Ageing, Disability and Home Care.
My Choice Matters runs a website and a series of workshops aimed at people with a disability and their families.
My Choice Matters aims to develop and grow skills in making choices, developing a voice and gaining more control over one’s life.
These skills are now more needed in the rapidly developing disability support systems, particularly the self management of funds now possible through the NDIS as it rolls out.
The current NSW Community Participation funding through FACS can also be self-managed.
My Choice Matters aims to help people with all sorts of disabilities to have Choice, Voice and Control over their own lives. It is helping people gain the skills they need to manage their own funding under the NDIS.
Get More Skills workshops are run regularly across NSW and cover topics like:
- generally being in charge of your own life
- speaking up
- knowing what questions to ask
- managing and understanding more about a plan
- managing people
- managing money
- new ideas
The My Choice Matters website is here.
Self-advocacy skills for further study
High school sets up autistic kids to fail in college. Here’s how to fix the problem.
This is the headline of a very thought-provoking article about helping young adults gain the self-advocacy skills they need for college from the US magazine Vox, find it here.
