Citizen Advocacy South Australia Inc.

Rosey Olbrycht

manager.citizenadvocacy@gmail.com

Person with disability

Dear Sir/Madam

Citizen Advocacy South Australia Incorporated has initiated over three hundred relationships of support for people with intellectual disability in South Australia since inception in 1986, using the Citizen Advocacy Principles and Practices as per the Citizen Advocacy model. About a third of the current relationships supported by the program are over ten years old with a few being more than twenty years in existence.

Over that time we have been grateful for the support of the Department in its various incarnations through the Demonstration Project funding and later through the National Disability Advocacy Program.

We are deeply concerned for the ongoing support of advocacy, which is independent and free of conflict of interest, for people with disability. Citizen Advocacy South Australia Incorporated supports the views expressed in the 2011 Productivity Commission Enquiry Report into Disability Care and Support which recommended that advocacy be provided and funded outside the NDIS.

The submission attached is provided in good faith that decisions made about the future of advocacy for people with disability will give greatest consideration to the people themselves who are most vulnerable in our society.

Yours sincerely,

Heather Buck
Chairperson
Citizen Advocacy South Australia Inc.