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| So far you have learnt: • What self-advocacy is • Where you can use self-advocacy • What skills you need to be good at self-advocacy • What you are already good at when you are speaking up for yourself • What you need to improve to be better at self-advocacy • What your rights and responsibilities are as a person with a disability who is from a CaLD background • How to decide what the problem is • How to decide how you would like things to change In this step you will learn the self-advocacy skills of:
It is important that you collect as much information as you can
about your problem. In particular you need to know what your rights
and responsibilities are so you know what things are reasonable
to ask for and expect. If you do not get the right information you
might be asking for something that is not possible and be upset
when you can’t get it. When you have the right information
you know what to expect and you won’t waste time trying to
do something that is not possible.
After you have decided what the problem is, how you would like things to change, and who to go to for help and information, you need to decide what information you need.
When you have decided what information you need to speak-up for yourself, you can think of questions you need to ask the people on your list from Activity 4.2. Sometimes it is hard to remember everything somebody tells you if you are asking a lot of questions so you might like to take notes while you are asking the questions. There is a sheet of paper in Activity 6.2 where you can write your questions and leave a space for you to write notes about the answer. If you think that ringing and asking questions is a bit scary, there are some tips to help you in Activity 5.3 and in the Communication and Listening sections.
It is usually easier to solve problems if you break the whole problem up into small steps and try to solve one step at a time. You may be able to solve some steps by yourself but need help form your support network for others. There are usually a few different ways to solve a problem. Some
solutions you think of might fix the problem now, but make things
worse later on. Others might take a long time to fix but work really
well in the long term, while some solutions might fix the problem
in some situations but not others. You might hear about a way somebody
else has solved the same problem but think it might not work for
you. You need to think about what might happen for all of your solutions
then decide which solution you think is best for you. If it helps,
you might like to write a list of all the solutions you can think
of starting from the one you like best and going through to the
one you like least.
After you have gathered all the information you can about your problem, you need to think about what you can do to solve the problem. It is good to think about as many different solutions as you can so you can find the one that would be best for you. You need to remember that YOU might need to change some things as well as other people. Look at the information you have gathered about your problem and try to think of solutions. It is a good idea to speak to other people because they might think about solutions you haven’t. Get together with your support person (or people) and try to think about as many solutions as you can. Write them all down on a blank sheet of paper as you think about them, even if you don’t really think they will work. When you can’t think of any more solutions sort the ones
you have into three groups. The three groups should be: BEST, OK,
and BAD.
When you have decided which solution is best for you, then you
need to think about how to achieve that solution. You need to think
about whether a letter, phone call, meeting, or government lobbying
would be best way.
All the things you have done so far have been helping you plan
your self-advocacy so now all you have to do is speak-up for yourself!
There are four ways you can speak-up for yourself: After you have decided what the first thing is that you are going to do, it is time to do it! But it can sometimes be scary to speak-up for yourself. You might be worried you will forget what you are saying or that people might have trouble understanding what you are saying because of your disability or that you don’t English very well yet. One of the best ways to become more confident about what you are saying is to practice. You can ask your support person to help you practice what you need to say until you feel comfortable with actually phoning the person or going to the meeting. Your support person should pretend to be the person you need to talk to. They should talk about the problem with you and some of the things that you think might come up. You should talk about your thoughts and feelings, ask all the questions you need to, write notes, practice communicating and listening well, make sure you relax and stay focused on what you want just like you would need to if you were speaking to a real person. You can keep practicing like this until you feel that you are comfortable doing it for real.
Good communication makes people feel comfortable telling another person about their thoughts and feelings AND makes them feel like they are being listened to. Not everyone, though, speaks clearly and shows they are listening in the same way that you do. People from different cultures have different ways of talking about their thoughts and feelings and showing they are listening because they learn to communicate in different ways. There is no right way or wrong way to communicate, just different ways. So you need to be aware that some people might find it difficult to talk about their thoughts and feelings, and some people might seem as though they are not listening. So when you communicate with somebody you need to think about how you like to talk about things and how you show people you are listening to them. You also need to think about how the person you are communicating with might like to do it. It can sometimes be hard to feel comfortable talking with somebody who does not show they are paying attention and listening the same way as you do. You might feel scared if you try to talk with somebody and they look you straight in the eye and think they are angry at you or not listening to what you are saying. If you feel scared, you probably don’t feel comfortable talking about your thoughts and feelings and so you might not speak-up about what you want. Speaking up for yourself can be scary, especially the first time
you try it, but it helps if you are a good communicator. To be a
good communicator and speak-up for yourself and ask for what you
want, you need to be good at four things: Knowing what you want is the first step to good communication. If you don’t know what it is you want or what it is you are asking for, it can be hard for other people to help because they don’t know what they have to change! Knowing what you want to say is especially important if English is not your first language or if your disability causes you to have trouble talking. If you don’t know what you want to say then it is harder for you to get somebody else to understand. There are activities in Step 4 to help you decide what you want to speak-up about. Talking to somebody about what you want is the next step for good communication. In Step 4 you learnt how to find the best person to talk to about your problem. Once you have found somebody you feel comfortable talking with and who you think might be able to help you with your problem you need to think about the way you feel most comfortable telling them about your problem. You might talk to them over the telephone, you might write a letter, or you might talk with them in person. It is important you try to choose the method that is most comfortable for you because it will make it easier for you to speak-up. When you are talking to somebody they should pay attention to what you are saying and to how you act when you are saying it. When telling somebody about your thoughts and feelings you should try to stay calm, speak about how you feel and be polite because people are more likely to listen to you if you do. You can learn more about ways to talk to someone in the assertiveness section of the manual. You have the right to be listened to when you are telling another person about your thoughts and feelings. You also have a responsibility to listen to the other person when they are responding or telling you about their thoughts and feelings. There are many ways to show you are paying attention and are interested in what the other person has to say. You might be more comfortable with some than others so it is important to remember that people show they are listening in different ways. Turn to the section on listening if you need to improve your listening skills. The final step for good communication is to make sure both people
understand what the other is trying to say. This sounds as though
it would be easy but it can sometimes be difficult because of the
different ways that people have of talking and showing they are
listening. The most important thing to do is to respect the other
person’s thoughts and feelings and to repeat important parts
of what they are saying or ask questions to make sure you understand
what has been said.
Draw a bug (a beetle) that has:
Why not? What is different? Even though both bugs where drawn using the same instructions they probably look very different. That is because everybody is different and they all interpret the things they hear differently. The bugs might look different because of what you thought of in your mind when you heard the word ‘bug’, they might look different because they are different sizes, they might look different because you drew a scary bug and the other was friendly and cute. The bug drawings show that it can sometimes be difficult to communicate
an idea or thought or feeling because the other person might see
things differently. Good communication is difficult because everybody interprets things differently but it helps if you keep an open mind, ask and give a lot of information and ask questions if you don’t understand something.
Have you ever thought you heard somebody say something when they actually said something else? That is probably because there is a difference between hearing somebody speak and listening to them. When you LISTEN to somebody speak you HEAR the words they are saying but you also pay attention to the way they say it, how they act, and what you have heard them say before. Listening helps you to UNDERSTAND what the other person is saying because you pay attention to what the other person is thinking, feeling, and wanting. If you do not listen properly mistakes are easy to make because you do not check you have understood what the other person is saying. It can be difficult for people who are learning a new language to listen properly because they are concentrating on trying to understand what is being said and do not have time to pay attention to anything else. It can also be difficult to pay attention to what a person is thinking and feeling if they have a strong accent or have difficultly speaking because of a disability. Because of these problems, it is important to check that you have correctly understood what the other person is saying when you speak-up for yourself. You can check that you have understood what the other person is saying by asking questions and repeating what you think they are trying to tell you. The other person is then able to correct you if you are wrong and everyone understands what is being discussed. This is called REFLECTIVE LISTENING. There are four stages of reflective listening. They are:
To be a good listener you have to check you have understood the other person correctly by asking questions and repeating what you think they are saying. You might be used to HEARING people rather than LISTENING to them so you may need to practice your listening skills. You can practice listening properly with your family and friends
everyday. When you are talking with them, try to pay attention to
what they are saying, and then check that you have understood correctly
by asking one of these questions followed by what they are saying:
• Problem Solving: |
