Individual Advocacy
Individual advocacy is one-on-one help for a person with disability to solve a problem. We don’t stay involved for a long time.
VALID also supports family members of people with intellectual disability as they advocate with or for the person.
Individual advocacy helps people:
- Speak up about what they want
- Explore the choices they want to make
- Get the information they need to make their own decisions.
Advocates work with people to fix the problem as soon as possible. We work with people to agree on an advocacy goal and figure out together who will do what. There might need to be a few people involved to sort the problem out.
VALID is funded by the Victorian State Government as the peak statewide advocacy body for adults with intellectual disability.
Making an enquiry
Advocates aren’t always available at short notice. So we make decisions about advocacy requests depending on the type of problem and how urgent it is.
We will need some details before we can start working with you. We will ask for your consent if we need to talk to other people about your problem.
For people with intellectual disability or who don’t use email:
Call 03 9114 9415 and leave a message. An advocate will call you back.
If you are about to be homeless or someone is abusing you:
Call VALID reception on 03 9416 4003. They will contact the advocacy team to look at your case quicker.
For family members, friends or professionals:
- Email [email protected]
- Describe the problem
- Tell us whether you have consent from the person to talk to us about the problem or not
- Let us know what the risk to the person is if nothing is done about the problem
- Let us know what council area the person lives in
- Please do not give us any other details unless you have the person’s consent.
VALID’s Individual Advocacy Client Handbook has more information, including Easy Read and contact details of other Statewise Advocacy Organisations.
Making a Complaint
If a VALID client is unhappy with the advocacy or other VALID service, they should:
- Speak to their advocate or staff member. You can speak to your advocate directly, Contact Us or use our Complaint Form to make a complaint.
- VALID will work to resolve the complaint quickly and fairly. VALID’s CEO will keep the client up to date about what is happening to sort out the complaint.
Download VALID’s Complaint Policy (plain English and Easy Read)