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SUNSHINE COAST CITIZEN ADVOCACY PROGRAMME INC.
MEETING INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
1. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will recruit persons with an intellectual disability and persons with multiple disabilities where the disability has been acquired before adulthood. Persons recruited must reside or have roots in the Sunshine Coast.
2. This policy applies to people regardless of ability, gender, religion, age or culture.
3. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will endeavour to make people with an intellectual disability in the Sunshine Coast aware of its existence, its aims and its activities. In that regard, Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will clearly and persistently promote and explain its aims and activities.
4. To gain an understanding of the needs of people with an intellectual disability, and to meet those needs, Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will endeavour to involve people with an intellectual disability in its management by encouraging them to become members of the Board or of its sub-committees, and by encouraging members of the organisation to propose and to second members with an intellectual disability to become members of the Board or of its sub-committees.
5. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy abides by the principles of Citizen Advocacy as written in CAPE (Standards for Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation -O'Brien and Wolfensberger). The staff of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will with the assistance of the Board of Management - actively seek out and identify people with an intellectual disability or with multiple disabilities who may need a citizen advocate.
6. The effectiveness of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy is rated by an external evaluation team against the standards of CAPE. The standards which specifically apply to meeting the needs of protégés in protégé/advocate relationship are:
R 1411 The protégé’s age
R 1412 The protégé’s capacity for relationship reciprocity
R 1413 The protégé’s need for spokesmanship to defend human and legal rights
R 1421 The diversity of advocacy roles
R 143 Avoiding social overprotection
R 21 Vision and creativity of protégé recruitment
R 22 Advocate recruitment
R.23 Advocate orientation
R 24 Advocate-protégé matching
R 25 Follow-along and support to relationships
R 26 Ongoing training for advocates
R 27 Advocate-associates emphasis
7. People with an intellectual disability have a great variety of needs for representation and relationships which can be met by citizen advocates. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will be flexible in its recruitment to establish and to support relationships which will best suit the persons and their changing circumstances. The staff of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will get to know potential protégés, their needs, preferences and their characteristics on a personal level, and will consciously and systematically recruit citizen advocates to meet their needs.
8. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy recognises that, with present resources, only a small number of people with an intellectual disability can be matched. In order that as wide a range of advocacy needs as possible can be met, Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will ensure that protégés are recruited from both sexes and from a wide range of ages (birth to old age), living environment, ability, types of advocacy, duration of relationship, and the levels of demand that protégés make of their advocates.
9. Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will take particular care to seek out people with intellectual disability who
Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will then carefully and systematically plan and implement recruitment, orientation, matching, support and follow-up to ensure that advocates likely to meet these needs are found and given every encouragement to meet each protégé’s individual advocacy needs and wishes.
10. Advocates will be given advice and assistance to locate and use the community and service resources necessary to meet their portage’s needs and wishes, and assistance in campaigning to have these provided if they are not readily available.
11.
Crisis advocates and advocate-associates with a wide range of knowledge
and experience will be recruited so that the needs of people with an
intellectual disability in crisis may be met, and so that advocates may be given
professional advice by the advocate-associates.
12. For each protégé and protégé/advocate relationship, Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy will have a written record of:
The protege's life experiences, characteristics, aspirations, needs and the potential advocacy role.
Strategies for and implementation of advocate recruitment and orientation to meet the needs of each protégé.
The orientation of advocates both generally, and for each protégé's needs:
The matching process, and the responsibilities and expectations explained to the protégé and to the advocate, and any ideas given to stimulate each advocate to meet his or her protégé’s needs.
The follow-along and the support, advice and help given to advocates to meet the needs of the protégé as originally defined and as they change with time, and the progress of the relationship.
The Annual Internal Relationship Review
The regular review of all protégé/advocate relationships by staff to evaluate, with the assistance of the Board, the strategies of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy.
The review by staff and at least one Board member of any matches which have discontinued to ascertain the causes of the discontinuation and, if necessary, to amend policies and practices as indicated by the review.
All records and documentation will be confidential in accordance with the Privacy Safeguards Policy of Sunshine Coast Citizen Advocacy.