Local community advocacy and support

Local community advocacy and support

We know from the work that we and other self-advocacy groups do and from our own  life experience, that many services and the processes for getting support are inaccessible. Because of this we end up getting left out.  

Our life gets broken up into different pieces, we have someone to call about housing, someone to call about hate crime, someone to call about benefits, someone to call when we are sick. The support we get just looks at one area of our life, when in real life, you can’t break a person down into little pieces.  

When we go to our local self-advocacy group for support they see us as a whole person with needs, wishes and ideas. 

Self-advocacy organisations and groups support us to access services and understand inaccessible information. They support us with the many areas of our lives so that we can move forward, grow and live the life that we want to. Many self-advocacy organisations provide a place and a safe space where we can go with any issue and at any time. They also help us to see and understand the barriers we face and work to break them down.  

We need local support that is flexible and respectful so we can live independent and have real choice and control. 

Supporting statutory services

Self-advocacy organisations and groups play an important role in supporting statutory organisations and local authorities to see the barriers we face and work with us to break them down. Quite often we are left out of important consultations about changes to policies and services that affect us. 

Self-Advocacy Matters

People First offers support to existing local self-advocacy organisations and to groups of people who want to set up a self-advocacy group in their area.

Find out more about our Self-Advocacy Matters work