Building a stronger foundation

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Vision

Recommendations

• Strengthen language in the objective of the framework to reflect the right to effective disability advocacy.
• Acknowledge the diversity of advocacy approaches by referring to and adding specific definitions for family, citizen, and legal advocacy.
• Recognise the value of self-advocacy groups and demonstrate a commitment to ongoing funding for these groups.
• Create the conditions for governments to deliver on the promise of the new Framework by securing a commitment by the Commonwealth, States and Territories to:

• Enshrine the right to advocacy in relevant legislation.
• Provide adequate and secure Commonwealth, State and Territory funding for disability advocacy organisations, that enables agencies to meet advocacy demand and retain staff.
• Take national action on two key systemic drivers of demand: problems with the NDIS and problems with the Disability Support pension.

VCOSS is pleased that the proposed framework is underpinned by a person-centered and rights-based approach whereby the rights of people with disability and their individual needs and aspirations are reflected in policy and program design.

However, to fully encapsulate our vision of advocacy, the framework should be amended to reflect the following themes. 

The right to advocacy

The objective of the framework should be strengthened to state that people with disability have the right to disability advocacy if they choose, rather than simply stating people with disability have access to advocacy.

This should be backed by legislative measures. Through the development of the framework, the Commonwealth should work with the States and Territories to secure a multi-lateral agreement to embed the right to advocacy in relevant Australian laws. This will make the framework more robust and provides an opportunity to strengthen its person-centered and rights-focused approach. 

A multi-lateral agreement – rather than bespoke bi-lateral agreements – is important.  The National Disability Advocacy Framework presents a structure for Commonwealth, state, and territory governments to align their advocacy services and standards to improve outcomes and access for people with disability, irrespective of which jurisdiction they live in.

Enshrining the right to disability advocacy would be a tangible expression of Australian governments’ shared commitment to truly protecting the rights of people with disability.

This move would be consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Australia ratified in 2008.

Subsection 1 of article 16 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that:

“States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, educational and other measures to protect persons with disabilities, both within and outside the home, from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse, including their gender-based aspects.”

Long-term funding for disability advocacy

Disability advocacy plays a unique role in empowering people with disability, as well as their families and carers, to assert their human and legal rights, communicate their needs and then meet them[1]. Advocates also play a vital role in identifying and reporting systemic issues and preventing future cases of violence, abuse, or neglect.

However, the advocacy sector is struggling to respond to the needs of every person with a disability who requests – or is referred for – advocacy, as it is not adequately resourced to meet growing demand and deliver quality services to all those who require advocacy. A fully funded disability advocacy sector that can provide timely and effective support is a core component of our vision for advocacy.

The ‘Responsibilities, Reform and Policy Directions’ section of the draft framework does include a commitment to “Ensuring the funding of disability advocacy is transparent, equitable, and accountable, and geographical coverage and service gaps are identified and addressed”. This is a good start, however, there needs to be explicit recognition of the need for the sector to be adequately funded to meet demand and to satisfactorily resolve matters.  VCOSS notes that there have been projects in several jurisdictions that seek to improve access to disability advocacy and provide a better “client experience” by examining opportunities to improve intake to disability advocacy services. While there is always room for enhancement to processes, and these projects are welcome, VCOSS’s position is that the principal solution to improving access is to provide the sector with adequate and secure funding.

A VCOSS-commissioned review of National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP) and Victorian Disability Advocacy Program (VDAP) funded organisations in Victoria found that, in order for the disability advocacy sector to perform its essential role in safeguarding people’s rights and overcoming barriers to their inclusion and participation in the community, governments must: strengthen the sector’s foundations by providing an increased level of core funding that reflects the quantum of demand and complexity of cases; ensure annual funding indexation is sufficient to address cost increases, particularly in a high-inflation environment; and provide greater funding certainty via longer-term contracts (VCOSS advocates for seven years, as recommended by the Productivity Commission review of funded community services).

These measures would also deliver productivity dividends – for example, better long-term planning, less staff turnover, a reduction in funded vacancies in the sector and greater organisational investment in workforce development.  VCOSS also advocates for additional resources for innovation and partnerships, to enable healthy growth and future success for the sector as part of our vision[2].  

Research undertaken for VCOSS has found that demand for disability advocacy has increased significantly since the introduction of the NDIS. NDIS-related issues are more time intensive and complex than other requests for advocacy and many advocacy organisations report that under current funding arrangements, they lack the resources needed to meet this increased demand[3].

This research also highlighted that some resource-constrained advocacy organisations are, in some circumstances, having to shift focus to the provision of information and one-off advice, rather than providing “true advocacy”.

VCOSS observes that, while there is a clear role for information services (sometimes referred to in the sector as “little advocacy”) – and this kind of intervention can support self-advocacy – it is a distinctly different type of support or service and, for people with disability who require individual advocacy, this kind of substitution can lead to lower levels of satisfaction and poorer outcomes for people with disability who need a comprehensive advocacy response.

VCOSS notes that this is not something that sits comfortably with the sector – it has been concerning and stressful for Boards, executive leaders, and frontline advocates, and is compounding the problem of staff burnout. When organisations provide “little advocacy”, it is often seen as a “forced choice” – that is, they are only doing so because the alternative is to leave people to languish on a waiting list for a comprehensive individual advocacy response or turn people away without a service at all. 

In regard to information provision (or “little advocacy”), VCOSS also notes that, in the transition to the NDIS, there are policy and funding gaps in relation to the information services part of the broader advocacy eco-system, and this connects with our concerns about the lack of appropriate recognition and funding for self-advocacy groups and other user-led communities, such as parent and carer groups. The new National Disability Advocacy Framework provides an opportunity to affirm the role and value of self-advocacy, and to enable a new look at the broader policy and funding settings. VCOSS notes that the main source of funding for these groups is the ILC stream of the NDIS, however, this funding stream is non-recurrent, focused on discrete one-off projects and is structured as a competitive grants process that many of our members and partners experience as having high barriers to entry. It does not support the sustainability of small, self-advocacy groups.

VCOSS has also identified that crisis-driven demand for NDIS-related advocacy has put a squeeze on disability advocacy organisations’ capacity to meet demand for advocacy related to mainstream services and systems, such as education, health, housing, justice and transport.

Further, we note that while services in Victoria have welcomed injections of ‘boost funding’ from our State Government in recent years, in recognition of the exponential growth in demand, including during COVID-19, the distribution of funding does not fall evenly, with larger organisations more likely to benefit the most[4]. Additionally, the drip-fed and short-term nature of this funding (and government funding generally) makes it difficult for organisations to deliver sustainable services and retain experienced staff.

Diversity of approaches to advocacy

VCOSS is concerned that the framework is orienting away from recognising the diversity of approaches to advocacy. It is important that the current and future revisions of the framework do not dilute and minimise different approaches to advocacy in the sector. Just as the framework recognises individual, systemic, and self-advocacy, the framework should be amended to recognise and include specific reference to and definitions of family, legal and citizen advocacy as follows:

• Family advocacy: where parents and family members advocate on behalf of the person with disability for a particular issue[1].
• Citizen advocacy: where community volunteers advocate for a person with disability, such as an intellectual disability, over the long-term, supported by a Citizen Advocacy organisation[2].
• Legal advocacy: where a lawyer provides legal representation in the justice system, pursues positive changes to legislation, or gives legal advice to people with disability about discrimination and human rights[3].

The framework also needs to recognise that self-advocacy groups are vital to the advocacy eco-system and commit governments to resourcing and funding these groups accordingly.

We also note that the current definitions of advocacy in the framework lack nuance in that they tend to only recognise individuals seeking out advocacy instead of also recognising the important parallel work of self-advocacy groups. Research undertaken for VCOSS has found that these groups are a major source of information and advice and harness social connection and community partnership to build and maintain significant networks that work on local, state, and national issues of importance. This empowers people with disability by supporting them to build confidence and learn self-advocacy skills.

VCOSS and Empowered Lives members are concerned that the framework fails to explicitly recognise self-advocacy groups and their contribution to advocacy. The Framework’s silence on self-advocacy appears out of step with the interim report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, which acknowledged the essential functions of self-advocacy and family advocacy in promoting rights awareness, greater autonomy and the recognition and reporting of abuse in group home settings:

“Independent advocacy and self-advocacy emerged as key factors in promoting the safety of people with disability living in group homes. If people with disability are aware of their rights and how to exercise those rights, they are more likely to recognise and report threats to their safety or wellbeing. The safety of residents is further protected when family members or other trusted supporters advocate on their behalf.”[4]

As such, it is important the framework be changed to protect and steward the advancement of these groups by highlighting their importance and acknowledging the role of Australian governments in supporting access through the provision of adequate and sustained funding.

The framework also tends to orientate towards, and focus on, individual advocacy and does not sufficiently recognise systemic advocacy. Individual advocacy and systemic advocacy are inextricably linked – systemic advocacy often stems from patterns or trends in individual advocacy cases. Systemic advocacy is vital to achieving purposeful and positive long-term change to problematic systems – systemic advocacy ‘wins’, such as changes to legislation, regulation, policies, or practice, can ultimately drive down demand for individual advocacy. As such, our vision for advocacy, which we wish to see reflected in the framework, includes well-resourced and valued systemic advocacy.