At CID, we have been advocating for a better world for people with intellectual disability for 60 years.
We have learned lots along the way.

At the 2019 conference of the Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability, Shu Hua Chan and Jim Simpson gave a keynote address on how we do advocacy.

We make sure that people with intellectual disability are at the centre of our advocacy. We work out a goal and make a plan to achieve it. We run campaigns. We build coalitions with allies. We work assertively but collaboratively with governments.

We have achieved a lot with our advocacy and the Our Health Counts campaign is a good example that has led to some significant improvements in how the health system works for people with intellectual disability.

We have written an article about how we do our advocacy. You can download it in Easy Read or in ordinary English.

A revised version of the article has also been published in Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities:
From rights to results: systemic advocacy and leadership by people with intellectual disabilities, by Shu Hua Chan and Jim Simpson.

Find more advocacy resources or read more about CID’s advocacy stories in our blog.