ABSTRACT
On April 21, 1981 the Victorian newspaper Sun announced that a group of “intellectually handicapped” people had formed a union that would fight “for the recognition of the rights of intellectually disadvantaged citizens” in Victoria. Today, this organization is known as Reinforce, and it is one of the oldest self-advocacy organizations for people with intellectual disability in Australia. The concept of self-advocacy is difficult to define, but in its most literal sense, it means speaking up on one’s own behalf and deciding what is best for oneself (Williams & Shoultz, 1982). A more fully developed interpretation of self-advocacy draws on broader principles of civil rights. The aspirations of the self-advocacy movement, for example, revolve around people with intellectual disability working together for social justice, fighting discrimination, changing the organization of disability services and, more generally, improving the social position and experiences of people with intellectual disability in society (Goodley & Ramcharan, 2005; Ward, 1998). At a group level then, self-advocacy might be typically defined as individuals who join together to advocate for a common cause. Drawing on these themes, Reinforce today declares that it is committed to promoting and protecting the “rights of people with an intellectual disability.” This chapter explores the process of consciousness-raising that underpinned the historical development of Reinforce, one of the oldest self-advocacy organizations in Australia.
