Session 03: Self-Advocacy | Healthy Community Living

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Healthy Community Living

Introduction

To advocate means to publicly support something
You can advocate by telling someone else about your rights or feelings on an issue
Many people think advocating is always about a big issue, such as supporting or protesting a certain law or policy
But advocating can also be for something that only impacts one person
You can advocate for issues impacting your health, goals, finances, rights, or anything else that impacts your ability to live in the community and be part of society
Advocacy can be broken into two parts, self-advocacy, which impacts you, and systems advocacy, which can impact you as well as others
This session is going to focus on self-advocacy, but because systems advocacy can also affect your life we are going to touch on it as well

Self-Expert

Before you can be a successful advocate, you may need to know yourself and what you like
You may also need to know what rights you have, and what your responsibilities are when stating those rights to others
Learning about yourself will help you decide things you need to advocate for to improve your life
This will also help you ask for accommodations if you need them, which are changes to how things are done that will allow you to take part in work, class or another activity
Knowing yourself and being yourself is an important part of self-advocacy

Advocacy Tips

Advocacy is a process and does not always lead to immediate results
With advocacy even in small things, there may be barriers or setbacks along the way
Just because you do not see immediate change does not mean it is not worth speaking up
Advocacy can be done in many different ways but it requires thinking things through, and deciding how to advocate and when to advocate for a given issue
People you need to advocate with may have different goals than you do
It is also important to take care of yourself, understand your investment and the risks involved for you and others