Amaze advocates on behalf of the autism community for change to service and funding models and programs, government regulation and legislation, to improve support for autistic individuals and their families.
Advocacy is speaking, writing or acting to promote, protect and defend someone’s human rights.
Advocacy is about ensuring people have access to the services and supports they need, are treated with respect, protected from discrimination and safe from harm of all kinds.
People can advocate for themselves, or someone can advocate on their behalf. That’s what Amaze does – we’re an advocate for the autism community!
Amaze uses systemic advocacy to shape a better future for Autistic people in Victoria. This involves consulting with the autism community to better understand what matters to Autistic people and their families, and gathering stories to support our research.
Amaze then advocates to governments in a number of ways to help create change. It often does this in partnership with other autism and disability sector organisations. As part of this advocacy work, we develop policies and submissions for government and other important bodies, which outline the issues, challenges and ambitions of the Victorian autism community in relation to particular issues.
For example, when the Australian Parliament launched its Inquiry into services, supports and life outcomes for Autistic people, Amaze led the development of the Australian Autism Alliance’s submission. It used the information and ideas of more than 3800 Autistic people and their supporters to inform a comprehensive evidence-informed submission on a range of issues, including assessment and diagnosis, Autistic women and girls, education, employment, the NDIS and the need for a National Autism Strategy (now under development). You can read the Alliance’s submission here.