My Voice, My Rights, My Way
Self advocacy skills for better outcomes.
The My Voice, My Rights, My Way project will deliver co-designed workshops which aim to teach self-advocacy skills to empower you to confidently advocate for yourself and better navigate the mental health system.
The workshops will help you identify the key barriers you have faced in the mental health system and provide you with resources to build your knowledge and assist you to determine a clear path forward.
The project will also offer peer networking and peer mentoring opportunities and will be delivered by people with their own lived experience of mental health challenges.
CERIPH Self- Advocacy and Mental Health: A Rapid Review
CoMHWA recently worked with Curtin University to commission a comprehensive literature review exploring the concept, value, and practice of self-advocacy in mental health care, particularly within the Australian context.
The review traces the origins of self-advocacy to global and Australian consumer/survivor movements, highlighting its political and rights-based foundation. It discusses self-advocacy as both an individual and collective practice, often intersecting with other forms of advocacy and supported by Peer workers and family. The review identifies several benefits of self-advocacy including:
- Improving communication of consumer needs
- Reducing restrictive practices
- Enhancing consumer empowerment, and
- Resisting discrimination.
The review identified several key barriers to self-advocacy including:
- Systemic discrimination
- Stigma
- Trauma
- Cognitive and emotional labour
- Unequal access to resources.
Special considerations are given in the report to priority groups such as Aboriginal people, culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) communities, LGBTQIA+ individuals, young people, and those living in rural areas.
Ultimately, the report finds that while self-advocacy is often extremely valuable to individuals, it must be supported by structural reforms, culturally safe practices, and systemic change to avoid placing disproportionate responsibility on individuals within an often non-responsive system.
Read our Rapid Review on Self Advocacy and Mental Health
For further information on this project, please contact Elena Mauen, My Voice Project Manager via emauen@comhwa.org.au
This project is generously funded by the Department of Social Services.
