Home Citizen Advocacy Changing Lives How it works! Policies Contact us Useful Links
SUNSHINE COAST CITIZEN ADVOCACY PROGRAMME INC.
DECISION MAKING AND CHOICES
The lives of many people with an intellectual disability have been ordered by others. They have been given no choice and no opportunity to make their own decisions. Citizen Advocacy aims to open the lives of people with an intellectual disability to choices, and to encourage and help them to make decisions with the help of their citizen advocate.1. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy welcomes protégés and advocates to have a say in its management, and endeavours to include protégés and advocates on its Board and on its committees (see page 3). This participation can enable protégés to be actively involved with planning, management and evaluation of the program. When a protégé’s disability restricts this participation, members of the Board or of committees will help and, should it be necessary, the help of an interpreter may be sought.
However, Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy recognises that the protégé/advocacy relationship is paramount. Neither the protégé nor the advocate needs to feel an obligation to take part in the management of the programme.
2.
The Annual General Meeting of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy shall give all members the opportunity to elect the Board of
Management which shall be representative of people with an intellectual
disability, advocates and members of the community.
3.
Recruiting of protégés and advocates, their orientation, their
matching, and the support and follow-along given Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy
Inc. will give advocates - and through them their protégés resources and
opportunities, and so will empower the protégés to make decisions.
Advocate
orientation will give a prospective advocate the means whereby the advocate can
help the protégé - who has an intellectual disability - to become informed of
different choices and to make decisions.
4.
In the development of a protégé/advocate relationship, the prospective
protégé will be consulted - by whatever means of communication are necessary -
to determine the protégé’s needs and roles which he or she wishes the
advocate to fulfil. The protégé
must be given the opportunity to accept or to reject a particular advocate, and
the decision shall be respected.
However,
Citizen Advocacy recognises that some people with an intellectual disability
have been so abused or rejected that they will not communicate with people and
will reject a relationship. Sunshine
Coast Citizen Advocacy may form the opinion that a citizen advocate will benefit
such a person, and may match a citizen advocate without the protégé’s
consent.
6.
Regular evaluation of the activities of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy
will be made by an external evaluation team against the standard written in
Standards for Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation (CAPE). - O'Brien and
Wolfensberger.
The
standards written in CAPE allow an evaluation of the extent to which people with
an intellectual disability are represented on the Board of Sunshine Coast
Citizen Advocacy, and are a measure of the opportunities given to protégés to
select choices and to make decisions.
Protégés
and advocates will have the opportunity to meet the evaluation team and to give
their opinion, and to make suggestions to improve the service that Sunshine
Coast Citizen Advocacy can provide.
7. Advocates and protégés will be notified of any proposals for changes in the principles of policies of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy. They will be asked for their comments, and these will be taken into account by the Board.