1. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
DRAS is an agency of the National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP).
DRAS is funded by the Australian Government. This means that people with disabilities can receive advocacy help at no cost to them.
All services provided by NDAP agencies are free of charge.
There are 3 main NDAP agencies who provide advocacy support for people with a disability in SA.

2. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
Disability advocacy is acting, speaking or writing to promote, protect and defend the human rights of people with disability.
Acting in a partisan manner (i.e. being on their side and no one else's), with their consent or in their best interest and with minimal conflict of interest.

3. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
WHO PERFORMS ADVOCACY?
Spouse/ Partner
Family
Friends
Paid support workers (continuous vs limited)
Independent Advocates (unpaid - concerned with human rights & fundamental needs)
Lawyers (paid - tests a person's legal rights before the court)
To advocate may be part of a professions' Code of Conduct or Ethics e.g. teachers, nurses and social workers.
Citizen Advocacy (NDAP agency) helps people advocate for themselves.
Independent advocates, such as the people who work at DRAS, are paid a salary. But this salary comes from the funding the government pays to keep DRAS running. Unpaid means that the customer does not pay for the service.
DRAS Advocates have an excellent understanding of community law and some have law degrees, but when working for DRAS they are not working as lawyers.

4. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
AT A GLANCE
Biggest areas of requests for assistance are:
Accommodation
Consumer affairs
Government services
Financial assistance (eg: Centrelink payments, access to own money)
Guardianship Board

5. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
Disability Rights Advocacy Service advocates help people who have disabilities and their family members and/or carers to speak up when they need to be helped. This is called advocacy.
DRAS advocates are good at helping people, especially those from other countries and people who may not speak or read English well.
A DRAS advocate may be able to help you speak and be heard. Disability Rights Advocacy Service advocates listen when you tell them what is happening to you, help you decide what you want to change and how to change it, then help you make the change.
DRAS works to change disability and other services so they are better at helping people, especially those who have come from other countries and who may not speak or read English well.

6. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
IMPACTS ON ADVOCACY
Conflict of Interest - exists where there is a divergence between the individual interests of a person and their responsibility to their client(s), such that an independent observer might reasonably question whether the actions or decisions of that person are influenced by their own interests.
More generally, conflicts of interest can be defined as any situation in which an individual or agency is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity in some way for their personal or corporate benefit.
Pecuniary interests - a direct or indirect financial interest in a decision.
Non-pecuniary interest – matters such as relationships, affiliations or personal/emotional relationship/antagonism that can influence decision-making.
Pecuniary relates to money.

7. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
Real conflict of interest occurs when there is an actual conflict of interest.
Potential or perceived conflict of interest occurs when there is a risk that the matter could be considered a conflict of interest.
What might a real conflict of interest be that could prevent advocacy from being successful? One example might be if a person with a disability has a complaint against their local council, but the advocate is an elected member at the Council. Another example is when Monica was a Board member of DRAS, she was working at TAFE as the Statewide Disability Support Manager. When a student made a complaint about TAFE, Monica needed to make sure she contacted DRAS and put it on record that she couldn’t hear any information about the case from DRAS or help them with advice, because her employment with TAFE meant she needed to take TAFE’s side in any dispute.
What might be perceived as a conflict of interest? Another example from Monica: When Monica was appointed as a senior manager in Disability SA she resigned from the Board of DRAS because she didn’t want anyone to be able to say that DRAS got some benefit, extra funding or whatever because of the relationship between DRAS and Monica. In other words, she didn’t want anyone to think there could be a conflict of interest.

8. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
SOME ISSUES TO CONSIDER WHEN DECIDING WHETHER TO REFER TO A PROFESSIONAL ADVOCATE
National Standards for Disability Services, DDA or equivalent – has there been a breach?
2. What is in your job description & what is your mandate?
3. Duty of Care and your Ethical Obligations – what do they require of you?
4. Should the matter be taken to the South Australian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal (SACAT)?
Have you noticed restrictive practices that are perhaps in the organisation’s best interest rather than the best interest of the individual who has a disability?
Is this something an expert could do better than you?
Not just disability legislation. Have other legal rights been breached?
Mandate – in other words, what do you believe your job requires you to do for the people you support?
An NDAP agency can support people to go to SACAT or help represent them there – particularly if the individual with a disability wants a change to a restrictive practice (eg: to gain control of their own money or to be able to make supported decisions about themselves)
6. Helping your customers with issues that are beyond your understanding or that require connections you don’t have with other organisations yet. Remember that advocating for the rights of people with a disability is something that professional advocates do all the time – there may be many things that they can do better than you. AND IT IS THEIR JOB – NOT YOURS!

9. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
National Disability Insurance Scheme
If one of the people you support (or their guardian) is unhappy with a decision made by the NDIA, they can apply for an Internal Review.
An Internal Review is when someone’s file is given to another person in the NDIA to look at the information and decision and review it.
DRAS can help with this process.
If the person is still not happy they can apply for an External Merits Review. The person has the chance to add more supporting information and take their case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
DRAS has special funding to help people with every aspect of this process. (so does Brain Injury SA, DACSSA & Advocacy for Disability Access and Inclusion (ADAI)
NDIA: National Disability Insurance Agency – administers the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
See the extra presentation for more details about how this process works.

10. Disability Rights Advocacy Service
Questions?
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