What Is Citizen Advocacy?

Citizen Advocacy involves the creation of long-term Partnerships between two people.

In each Partnership, one of the Partners:

• helps the other to safeguard their human rights

• provides the other with moral support

• gives some practical help

The best – recognised definition of Citizen Advocacy is probably that produced by John O’Brien:

“An ordinary citizen develops a relationship with another person who risks social exclusion or other unfair treatment because of a disability. As the relationship develops, the advocate chooses ways to understand, respond to and represent the other person’s interests as if they were the advocates own”

Citizen Advocacy is

• independent of services received by the person with a disability and their family

• a partnership in which the Advocate’s sole loyalty is to their partner

• not a service to the person with a disability, but a resource for them within a relationship freely entered into

• directed by the two people in the partnership

Dunfermline Advocacy Initiative finds advocates to stand beside people who are isolated and not always able to put their own interests forward. DAI introduces local people to people with a learning disability and invites them to make a difference in each other’s lives. Citizen Advocates don’t need qualifications or experience, just the will to make one other person’s life better by getting to know them, representing their interests, protecting their rights and involving them in the life of the community.