CCLP PROJECT Learner (011117)
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3. Advocacy<br />
a) What is the role of an Advocate?<br />
b) Give two examples of when you have been an advocate for a person you support.<br />
Example One:<br />
Example Two:<br />
c) Please explain how is advocacy empowering for the people Community Connections<br />
supports?<br />
AND<br />
d) How it affects the choices and decision making of the person who is being advocated for.<br />
Having someone advocate for the supported person is empowering the supported person<br />
because…<br />
When a supported person is being advocated for, their choices and decisions are…<br />
e) In what situations might advocacy be disempowering for the people Community<br />
Connections supports?<br />
Self-Advocacy or Self-Representation <br />
Self-‐representation is a person promoting their own interests around their own choices <br />
and decisions. It is important because it allows a person to take control of a situation. <br />
Self-‐representation empowers a person to act on their own choices and decisions, thus <br />
experiencing self-‐determination – a right that all citizens in New Zealand are entitled <br />
to. <br />
Self-‐representation (or self-‐advocacy) has only two parts – the person advocating for <br />
themselves and the issue. <br />
Example: Tallulah would like to exchange the calculator she bought for another one<br />
because the one she bought doesn’t work. Tallulah (self-advocate) goes back to the<br />
shop and talks with the shop assistant to get a new one (the issue).<br />
For people supported by Community Connections, self-‐representation is especially <br />
important. Historically, disabled people have not been considered competent to <br />
represent themselves and their needs in society. Further, because of this, their <br />
‘ordinary life’ actions have often been disregarded (e.g. Tallulah has a learning <br />
disability therefore it must have been the way she used the calculator that mucked it up <br />
and broke it, so we won’t give her a replacement.) <br />
As such, it is important in our support role to promote self-‐representation whenever <br />
possible. When we do this, we are sending the message that disabled people have a <br />
voice, and they are entitled to be heard – at all levels. <br />
10 <br />
<strong>CCLP</strong>v2 Practical Project 021117
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