Citizen Advocacy Foundation Skills

At the end of this taster lesson the student will have covered all the essential areas and will understand and appreciate how individuals can advocate successfully for themselves, for each other and also collectively mobilise group advocacy support for an agreed and common platform.

Human being are complex creatures and each individual expresses their needs in different ways. We will explore human nature by looking at what we have in common and looking at individual needs and preferences.

A very large number of countries have made a commitment to promote, preserve and protect human rights for their citizens. We will look at the steps already taken to implement the United Nations Charter on Human Rights and the frameworks developed by the EU Commission and Parliament insofar as they affect citizen rights in the UK. We will also look at exceptions and breaches of international human rights under UK law and by the UK government.

As individuals we exist in relationship to society and this affects our roles and our responsibilities to each other as we as the rights and duties owed to us by individuals, by organisations, by employers and by local or government agencies. We will look at some underlying principles that govern our relationships with each other and how we can ensure that those principles can be applied in practice.

Finally we will explore the pre-requisite conditions for speaking up, for making a good case and for achieving a good outcome. We will look at managing our own expectations and how to communicate these constructively in an advocacy situation. We will choose one issue as a basis for making a case, as a basis for developing an acceptable outcome and as a vehicle for communicating how we want to get our needs met effectively. At the end of this taster session the student will have the basis for advocating successfully about their chosen issue or situation.