Crisis Services
ASERT does not offer crisis services through our Resource Center. If you or someone you love is experiencing mental health distress or thoughts of suicide please call or text 988 for support.
Caregiver/Parent Guide to Self-Advocacy
Overview
Caregivers/parents must know how to advocate effectively for themselves if they are going to teach their child/young adult self-advocacy skills.
Here are some tips to follow when teaching your child to become a self-advocate:
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- Research the best ways to teach and transfer these advocacy skills to the child/young adult.
- Discuss/process the importance of advocacy with the child/young adult and have them agree to work on self-advocating.
- Role-play/practice self-advocacy at home in a safe, private setting for common situations or before an event.
- Be consistent.
- Be patient.
When starting out, it can be helpful to model advocating for yourself and afterwards process/explain how you advocated during the interaction/event. Remember, when advocating, it’s important to figure out the “who, what, when, where, why, and how.” Careful planning with each of those questions while role playing self-advocacy will help when using these skills in public in the future.
Later, after the child/ young adult feels more comfortable, you can have them practice with you before they try advocating for themselves in the community/in public.
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- Start with low-pressure situations.
- It can be helpful to be nearby to offer help if needed.
- Make sure you pay attention so you’re available to support as needed.
- With increasing experience and success, you can increase the level of difficulty and at the same time, increase the distance so you’re further away.
- It’s still important to pay attention to the interaction but only offer support if it’s truly needed.
Having your child/young adult specifically practice these skills on you, the parent or caregiver, provides a great opportunity for them to increase their confidence in their self-advocacy skills. Giving positive and helpful feedback to their self-advocating attempts is both validating and can help improve their self-esteem.
In all cases, process the event/interaction afterwards and ask them how they thought they did. This is a good time to express how you thought they did, reviewing what was done well and what also needs more practice.
Role play, practice, and repeat the self-advocacy skills in a variety of different settings/situations.
This information was developed by the Autism Services, Education, Resources, and Training Collaborative (ASERT). For more information, please contact ASERT at 877-231-4244 or info@PAautism.org. ASERT is funded by the Bureau of Supports for Autism and Special Populations, PA Department of Human Services.