Advocacy is a journey. It is a journey that parents with children who have special needs travel upon. You can see this journey of advocacy as being on a continuum. Sometimes you have to advocate a lot and sometimes not at all, but the potential is ever present. Like your beautiful children, advocacy will be with you a lifetime.
An advocate as defined by Webster's dictionary is "one who defends, vindicates or espouses a cause by argument, an upholder of defender."
If you can simply request support or services for your child and your request is granted, you do not need to advocate. Advocacy begins when your clear requests have been denied. It is a precise process that you use to obtain the goals that you have set for your child. These goals are as diverse as your children.
As an advocate my role is to assist parents and caregivers in constructing and facilitating an advocacy plan for their children and for creating a vehicle for ongoing accountability. For students and young adults my role is to teach and mentor them so that they can learn to advocate for themselves.
