Author Description

This document is a progress report on a British project designed to help disabled adults gain self-advocacy skills, becoming active consumers of the rights and benefits to which they are entitled. The aims of the project, which began in September 1988, are as follows: (1) promote staff development on advocacy among professionals working with the disabled; (2) research how unemployed disabled adults might maximize their potential by developing self-advocacy skills, transferring such skills to new situations, and developing a personal portfolio; and (3) assess the process of portfolio preparation as a tool and the use of portfolios as a finished product. Eleven case studies are being prepared, involving more than 30 learners and 13 key workers chosen to provide wide examples of physical and intellectual impairments, a range of agencies and professional backgrounds, ethnic diversity, and a variety of ages. Issues that have been raised concern the following areas: (1) principle and direction; (2) interagency cooperation; (3) necessary personal and professional skills for key workers; (4) the ethos of institutions; (5) implementation of self-advocacy work by key workers; and (6) the position of learners. (CML)