Citizen Advocacy Athens-Clarke Inc., is a community-based, nonprofit organization. Established in Athens in 1995, Citizen Advocacy recruits, matches and offers support to local citizens who enter into unpaid, one-to-one relationships with their fellow Athenians who have developmental disabilities. The individuals who form the Board of Directors assist staff in recruiting, matching, and encouraging citizens to be advocates.

The mission of Citizen Advocacy Athens-Clarke, Inc. (CAAC) is to create relationships that offer protection and advocacy to people with disabilities who are at risk and socially isolated from the community. CAAC establishes one-to-one personal relationships between these individuals (partners) in Athens, and well-connected citizens (advocates) in Athens who live typical, valued lives and can identify with the partners. CAAC recruits and orients advocates, matches them with partners, and supports the relationships.

Citizen Advocacy happens when a valued citizen who is unpaid and independent of human services creates a relationship with a person who is at risk of social exclusion. A citizen advocate comes to know their partner and decides how to represent and respond to this person’s interests as if they were the advocate’s own, thus bringing their gifts and concerns into the circles of ordinary community life. Citizen advocacy is congruent with Social Role Valorization, an approach towards helping people who are devalued and socially isolated live The Good Life. Social Role Valorization uses strategies to help people who have been devalued combat the negative life experiences they’ve had with positive, meaningful, valued roles in society.

Citizen Advocacy coordinators and board members work under a guiding set of principles in order to make the strongest possible match between people. These ideas guide our work:

Advocate Independence
In order to effectively represent partner needs, advocates must be free to develop a primary loyalty to partners and to act as independently as possible in meeting partner needs. Briefly, the citizen advocacy program should be structured to support citizen advocates as unpaid, independent volunteers to an individual.

Loyalty to Partners
It is essential to citizen advocacy that the advocate strives to define situations from the perspectives of the partner, and act to influence situations involving the partner in terms of the partner’s perspective. Advocates are encouraged to identify with the person with a disability; actively represent that person’s interests; help a person move from isolation towards social and community life; and make lasting commitments.

Program Independence
In order to support the development of effective advocacy relationships, the citizen advocacy office itself must be independent. The citizen advocacy program defines its identity and develops its support in the community. It is able to act independently of, and does not identify with, the human service system.

Role of Citizen Advocacy Staff
Citizen advocacy staff support, not “take-over,” advocate-partner relationships; there is a distinction between the staff role from the role of the citizen advocate. The staff’s role is to find and support advocates, not to be advocates themselves (in their role as paid staff). The citizen advocacy program does not do other worthy things that would detract from its focus. The office itself does not do individual advocacy; does not involve itself in broader lobbying or planning efforts on behalf of people; and does not sponsor other advocacy groups.

Diversity of Needs and Roles
People with disabilities have a wide variety of needs for representation and relationships which can be met by citizen advocates. One of the greatest potential strengths of citizen advocacy is the flexibility to define and support those relationships which can, if the participants choose, fit the changing individual circumstances of a partner. The citizen advocacy program seeks diversity among the people it invites into relationships. This includes seeking people with disabilities of differing abilities, ages, and living situations; forming relationships of different types and purposes; and seeking advocates from all segments of community life.

Positive Imagery
The citizen advocacy program should be a model of positive interactions and interpretations of people with disabilities. The board of directors and leadership of citizen advocacy include interested people with disabilities; interactions are respectful; and positive, non-stigmatizing language and images are used.

Citizen Advocacy Athens-Clarke works to invite and involve a wide range of local people into a various types of of responsible personal relationships with people whose lives are diminished because of prejudice toward disability. There are many ways that a citizen advocate can be involved.

Some examples of roles advocates may have:

• Spokesperson – vigorously represent a person’s best interests and to help them acquire necessary services and supports.
• Friend – begin an ongoing, ideally life-long, relationship that may develop into a true friendship over time.
• Ally – stand with a person during good times and bad times.
• Monitor – evaluate and hold human service organizations accountable for their actions.
• Mentor – offer guidance, affirmation, and direction through your presence, personal example, and advice.
• Opportunity Maker – arrange for a person to take advantage of new or better opportunities in our community through work, education, civic involvement, neighborhood involvement, or leisure.
• Red Tape Cutter – help cut through policies and procedures that can sometimes overwhelm.
• Representative Payee - assume responsibility of a person’s finances and to help the person with planning a monthly budget and saving for the future.
• Adoptive – find or provide a forever family.
• Legal Guardian – assume court-sanctioned responsibility for a person’s major personal or financial decisions.
• Crisis Advocate – respond and be present to a partner immediately on a short-term basis until a long-term advocate can be recruited, oriented and matched.