Skills To Consider When Hiring A Disability Advocate
The disability advocates stand for the disabled which can be either other people or themselves. Disability is termed as such when there is impairment affecting mental, physical and sensory capabilities of a person and their daily life in general.
Disability advocates stand for the rights of their clients being the disabled population. They may be paid or working on a voluntary basis. There are many different types of advocacy that they do which are; individual, group, self, citizen and systemic advocacy.
In this category, the disabled person stands and represents themselves.
When a group of people who are disabled are represented by the advocate, it is termed as group advocacy.
A one on one approach is taken for this kind of advocacy by a professional advocate to help the disabled individual address certain issues that are affecting them.
In this the community volunteers a disability advocate to represent the disabled person in the community.
Systemic advocacy involves when the rights of the disabled are sought after through legislation, policies and practices.
Some of the ways the advocates give out their services is when; they assist in the creation and raising awareness to other people or organizations touching on disability on behalf of the disabled, they have a hand in helping the government when it comes to issues that are involving people with disabilities, they help campaign for change and awareness to various media platforms and also raise the alarm in the instances where the disabled are not treated well, provision of information to disabled people about what rights they have and how to know when those rights are infringed, and helping in the negotiation process when the infringement of those has occurred to enforce them.
It is important to make the right choice in the disability advocate by looking if they poses certain skills as; communication and support for the disabled, running good campaigns which are effective and efficient, negotiation skills, in their advocacy they apply the human rights approach, have understanding, and operate together with having an understanding of the law.
There are many benefits of disability advocacy which include, safety, employment, health, income and education.
The safety of other disabled people is guaranteed as awareness is created on the same on what rights they have to protect themselves against unfairness and being discriminated.
Employment and income generation is another aspect that has been promoted by the advocates as they fight for the involved and a certain percentage to be set apart for the disabled to fill in all fields of work.
Creation on awareness and having the right to it for the disabled has helped many of them get an education.
Through the help of the disability advocates, the health care of the disabled has greatly improved.
It comes at a great advantage for the disabled members of society to hire an advocate specialized in disability issues to protect their rights.