Advocacy

Advocacy refers to actions taken to express one's view, to further a cause or belief, and/or to exercise rights. Advocacy is used by people with disabilities (as individuals or organized groups) to increase their influence and obtain their rights. Advocates, people who take advocacy actions, may focus their actions on themselves, other individuals, families, organizations, communities, and/or public policies. Self-advocacy activities are those practices that involve individuals taking the initiative to request, pursue, obtain, and, if necessary, demand particular things they need in their daily lives to attain and exercise their rights. Community-based or other systems-level advocacy efforts target larger shared concerns that individuals may have with organizations or social movement building. Examples of advocacy of this nature include community outreach and education, community organizing, and public policy initiatives. Systems-directed advocacy can cover a wide range of disability-related issues such as education and youth services, transportation and housing, health care and personal assistance, and human and civil rights.

[Page 43]Within the disability rights movement (DRM), self-advocacy has been a key strategy in changing social conditions. In the context of the DRM, the term self-advocacy has sometimes been used as synonymous with the movement through which people with disabilities seek human, civil, and legal rights. In using self-advocacy as synonymous with the DRM, it becomes difficult to differentiate among other terms such as advocacy, community movement, and self-help organization. This entry will consider self-advocacy as advocacy that entails those individual actions directed at attaining better conditions for the self and advocacy as actions often taken by groups directed at improving conditions for others, groups, communities, and larger social systems. Advocacy and self-advocacy have become important means by which people with disabilities (along with their allies and families) have been able to gain rights. Another meaning of self-advocacy that is common in the DRM, especially among individuals with intellectual disabilities, is advocacy done by people with disabilities themselves.

A social or community movement occurs when a number of individuals work together to address important social problems with the purpose of producing social change. These efforts often involve increasing access to opportunities, civil rights, and stronger government support for exercising group member civil rights. Social movements rely on collective efforts by individuals, groups, and/or organizations that share similar values and common goals. Community movements are considered “bottom up” efforts that can produce changes in the structure and mindset of societies. Five defining elements of social movements include that they are joint efforts, have a common goal to produce change, are organized, continue across time, and use a combination of actions both within and external to existing institutions.

Within the DRM, structured settings in which people with disabilities meet and discuss common issues as well as plan advocacy actions are organizations known as self-help organizations. The primary goal of self-help organizations is to provide members with a supportive social network that can offer both instrumental and emotional support. Self-help organizations also tend to have a defined mission of change and strategies to obtain that change. The group's purpose may range from personal change to social change, or it may include both approaches to advocacy, self and system, as part of its change agenda. Members of self-help groups are often trying to address a particular issue and may join the group in an effort to gain personal control. Self-help groups operate within informal settings in which marginalized individuals who have similar concerns, experiences, or living conditions can give and receive support. Self-help organizations are often organized in a nonhierarchical manner with group members leading the group; professionals rarely have an active role in the group unless they participate as members or nondirective advisers. Membership is usually open to anyone who has the focal problem, situation, or identity in common with other group members.

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