Melbourne East Disability Advocacy offers individual advocacy and has a volunteer citizen advocacy program.
What is an advocate?
- someone who supports you to be a part of decisions affecting you
- someone who looks after your interests, protects and promotes your rights
- someone to stand beside you so you feel heard. This might mean helping you with meetings
- someone who is independent
Individual advocacy
The staff at MEDA provide individual advocacy. They:
- write up an advocacy plan with you
- are given money to do their job
- will change when the person leaves their job
- are only available during working hours
- divide their time between many people who use MEDA
- are given money to do their job by the Government, you do not pay MEDA for assistance
Volunteer citizen advocacy
A volunteer citizen advocate:
- Is specially chosen for you
- Is not paid to be your advocate
- Is someone who might be your advocate for a long time if you both agree, or can be involved short term to assist you with a particular issue of concern
Click to read about how to get support.