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Victorian Disability Advocacy Program reviewSummary of findings – Easy English

Victorian Disability Advocacy Program

This paper has been written by the Department of Health and Human Services. From now on we will use the word department.

The Victorian Disability Advocacy Program gives money to 24 organisations to give advocacy to people with a disability and their families.

This happens in 3 ways.

Individual advocacy

Supporting a person with a disability.

For example if they think they been treated badly or unfairly.

Self advocacy

Speaking up for your rights and helping other people do the same.

Systemic advocacy

Helping to make bigger changes in society by doing things like changing policy or the law.

How we did the review

The department looked at the Victorian Disability Advocacy Program. In this paper we will call this the review.

The review looked at: how we do disability advocacy now other things happening like the NDIS how we can do things better in the future.

We asked advocacy organisations questions about:

what works well

what can be done better.

We looked at how other countries do advocacy. This was to find out how we could do things better in Victoria.

We looked at important papers like:

reports about abuse of people with a disability

people’s ideas about the next state disability plan.

We got an organisation called Workwell Consulting to help with the review.

This was to find out better ways of doing disability advocacy.

This was done by talking to advocacy organisations.

What the review said was good about the Victorian Disability Advocacy Program

The review told us that we do things really well in Victoria such as:

self advocacy

support from:the Self Advocacy Resource Unitthe Disability Advocacy Resource Unit.

supporting different groups

systemic advocacy to tell us what needs to change to make things better for people with a disability

using human rights as a starting point for advocacy

supporting people with a disability to speak up for their rights

Ways to make the Victorian Disability Advocacy Program better

The review told us that there are things we can do better.

Giving advocacy to more people with a disability and their families

Making it easier for people to:

find out about advocacy get access to advocacy have more choice about where to get advocacy from.

Supporting advocacy organisations to reach more people with a disability.

Advocacy for different groups like:

Aboriginal people

people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Gender Diverse or Intersex.

Helping advocacy workers do their jobs better

A qualification for advocacy.

A qualification is something that proves you can do a certain thing.

Advocacy workers sharing ideas about what works well.

Adding to the work that the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit does such as:

collecting information about advocacy and how it helps people with a disability

helping to share information about what works well

training

advice about how to run a good organisation.

Getting better at measuring advocacy

Giving clear information to advocacy organisations about measuring things like the number of people they support.

Making it easier for organisations to do reports about how well they are doing advocacy.

Using information about advocacy to tell people what is important and what needs to change.

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Doing things better when:

lots of people need advocacy there are people and places that get less advocacy

Giving better advocacy to different groups like:

people who live outside of Melbourne people who are hard to reach

Advocacy working better with other things that protect people’s rights like:

places that protect the rights of people who use or buy things from services like real estate agents

other places that keep people safe like:

the Office of the Public Advocate

the Disability Services Commissioner

the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

Support for advocacy

More support for:

self-advocacy groups and the Self Advocacy Resource Unit

systemic advocacy

different groups who don’t get much advocacy now.

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What will happen next

There will be $1.5 million extra for organisations that get money from the Victorian Disability Advocacy Program.

This is called the Disability Advocacy Innovation Fund.

The Disability Advocacy Innovation Fund will look at better ways of:

giving advocacy to people from different groups or people who are hard to reach

doing things better when:

lots of people need advocacythere are people and places that don’t get much advocacy

doing systemic advocacy to make it easier for people with a disability to take part in the community

protecting the rights of people with a disability who use or buy services.

These people are called consumers.

The department will also work with advocacy organisations to look at ways to make Victorian disability advocacy better in the future.

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Getting more information

More information about the Disability Advocacy Innovation Fund will be sent to advocacy organisations in December.

If you have any questions please talk to the Office for Disability.

Phone: 1300 880 043

Email: disabilityadvocacy@dhhs.vic.gov.au

Should you have any questions please contact the Office for Disability on 1300 880 043 or disabilityadvocacy@dhhs.vic.gov.au.

To receive this publication in an accessible format phone 1300 880 043, using the National Relay Service 13 36 77 if required, or email disabilityadvocacy@dhhs.vic.gov.au.

Authorised and published by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne.

© State of Victoria, Department of Health and Human Services November 2016.

Available at http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/for-service-providers/disability/protecting-rights/disability-advocacyThis document was produced using Photosymbols 4 www.photosymbols.com

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