Your life experience, communication skills and desire to stand beside someone to ensure their voice will be heard probably makes you an ideal Volunteer Citizen Advocate!
Standing beside people
We work with people living with intellectual disability who communicate in many different ways. We match Volunteer Citizen Advocates with people with whom they feel comfortable communicating, and we support you to develop new skills in communication strategies if you would like to do so.
Our Volunteer Citizen Advocates, in both long-term relationships and short term roles, stand beside people in meetings to ensure their voices are heard. This may include NDIS planning meetings.
Practical Advocacy
Everyone needs assistance at times to get through everyday life.
People with intellectual disability may need assistance with using a phone, using a new piece of household equipment, reading a map or deciphering a public transport timetable.
Volunteer Citizen Advocates can support, teach or assist people with disability to become as independent as possible by linking them with programs that empower them to increase their skills and community connections.
The advocacy partnership is not about the individual with disability forming a dependency upon the citizen advocate.
Community Inclusion
People living with intellectual disability often have only paid support workers in their lives. Volunteer Citizen Advocates may assist people to step outside these relationships and into community settings. This may involve going to a local café together or helping to identify what other community engagements are desired and helping to communicate these desires to make them happen.
Friendship
Volunteer Citizen Advocates do not take on the role to become friends to people living with intellectual disability, but this is often what occurs. A friendship between Volunteer Citizen Advocates and their matched partner often assists in the Volunteer Citizen Advocate’s advocacy role.
Click to read volunteer FAQs.
Click to read about becoming a MEDA member.