The Disability Royal Commission has committed $40,000 over 4 years to increase the capacity of advocacy in a new advocacy program that promotes a consistent, evidence-based approach to advocacy. This is set to be the biggest shakeup of advocacy in 30 years.  DANA is talking to its members and the broader disability community about what the future of advocacy may look like.  

This panel would like to talk to advocates and the broader disability community about what the future of advocacy may look like in 2030, asking addressing questions like:

Plain Language Abstract

This is a presentation by a group of people.

They will be talking about advocacy. Advocacy is a way of standing up for the rights of a group of people. 

Advocacy for people with disability in Australia will be changing.

DANA (Disability Advocacy Network Australia) have been talking with lots of people about what advocacy can look like in the future.

This presentation is about what advocacy could look like in 2030.

Young onset Parkinson's disease (YOPD) challenges futures as it is often seen as not fitting in with life courses, self-identity and relationships with others. The aims of this presentation explores the way those living with YOPD imagine their future as they project their bodies into futures. Throughout the interviews we discussed their concerns for the future along with how their visions of the future was changed and challenged. With this being said, participants suggested there is room for creating new narratives beyond chronic illness and disability to inform new ways of being. 

Plain Language Abstract

This presentation is about people with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is a disease that affects movement. Getting Parkinson’s disease before you turn 50 years old is called Young Onset Parkinson’s disease.

We talked to 22 people with Young Onset Parkinson’s disease. 

We asked them what they thought about their future.

The people told us how they thought their future had changed. They talked about what they would not be able to do in the future. Sometimes people did not want to think about their future at all.

We think that people might be able to create new, hopeful ideas about their futures.

We will tell you about these ideas.

This presentation is about Community Visitors services.

Some people with disability live in homes with support from disability services. Community Visitors are people who visit these homes. They find out if the people are being supported well or if there are problems in the homes.

We looked at Community Visitors groups in four states of Australia.

We talked to Community Visitors. They told us what was working well and not working well.

We made a big report. We will tell you what we learnt.

This presentation is about people who use challenging behaviours. But instead of it being about support people after they start using behaviours, it is about preventing people needing to use challenging behaviours. 

This presentation is about working with disability services. It is about training in services for support workers. It is about having support workers with more skills. It is about people with disability having better lives. 

Lots of money goes to Positive Behaviour Support to try to change behaviour after it starts. We think money should go to services to prevent behaviours from happening in the first place.