E-Community Activity: Changing Advocacy Roles

Send this message to the e-community of protégés and mentors.

Subject: Changing advocacy roles

When you are young, adults in your life advocate for you. As explained by a college student with a hearing impairment:

My mom had a meeting with the Board of Education about the options that were available for placing me in an education program. The board suggested to my mother that I be placed in the local special education program. She did not agree with the board and decided to fight against placing me in a program that was geared toward developmentally delayed children. The board's rationale for their decision was that they did not have the funds to send me thirty miles away to the school where there was an appropriate early intervention/deaf education program. My mom began researching the laws related to education services for children with special needs, and that's when she found out about PL 94-142. She used this law to force the Board of Education to allow me to take a bus to the school where appropriate services were available. My mother taught me how to stand up for what I deserved.

As you become an adult, you learn to advocate for yourself. The same student says,

I learned to stand up for myself. [My mother] made sure that I was given the opportunities that were needed to allow me to grow and develop to my maximum potential. After that, it was up to me to fight for what I needed. [She] taught me how to be independent and to take matters into my own hands. I learned to be my own self-advocate at a young age, and I think a combination of that with self-esteem and confidence allowed me to excel to the level that I'm at today.

Give an example in your life of others advocating for you and one of you self-advocating. Share one thing you can do to become better at self-advocacy.