Getting Support
You’re allowed to have a say on the things that are happening in your life. As you get older, you’ll get more and more say on bigger decisions. For now, the adults in your life have to decide the important stuff, but what you want is a big part of that. So, you might want some support to understand what’s happening, make sense of how you’re feeling, and make sure the adults in your life listen to you.
Sometimes adults make decisions you don’t like. You might want to know why a decision was made and if it can be changed. You might want to let someone know how their decision made you feel. Some decisions can even feel unfair, wrong or unsafe, and you might want some support to figure out what to do next.
It’s important to have someone in your life who you trust to be your advocate!
An advocate could be:
- Someone in your family/whānau
- Someone who looks after you (like a caregiver)
- Someone from Oranga Tamariki that you trust and get along with
- Your teacher, or another adult in your life
- A Kaiwhakamana from VOYCE
If you’d like support from a VOYCE Kaiwhakamana, get in touch!
What is advocacy?
Advocacy can look different for everyone, depending on your situation and the people involved. It’s important to know your worth, that you deserve to be treated with aroha, care and respect, and to build confidence in advocating for yourself. But this can be tricky and can take time. Whether you want to advocate for yourself, or you want someone to advocate with you, there’s a few things we recommend (click on the pictures):
Support: Reach out to someone you trust
Resolution: Feeling ok about what’s decided and why it has to be that way
Influence: Have a say on decisions that are made about you
Voice: Figure out how you feel and what you want and share this with the right people
Understanding: Find out what’s happening / your rights / options
Advocating for yourself
Advocating for yourself is the ability to speak up for yourself, in a way that gets people to listen. You might want to do this on your own or with support.
Advocating for yourself can look different for everyone, depending on your situation, and who you are as a person. To advocate for yourself you need to be comfortable asking questions, finding out what your rights and options are, figuring out what you want to happen, and communicating this to decision makers in a way that will be understood and heard.
Here are some tips on how to advocate for yourself:
- Recognise your value: It’s important to know that you deserve to be treated well, and have your mana treated with respect. Knowing your worth helps your build the self-confidence you need to stand up for yourself.
- Plan what you want/need: Once you know what you want or need, you can break it up into smaller goals that will help you get what you want. You could talk about this to someone you trust and hear their advice.
- Get Support: Having people who believe in you, or want things to be better for you means that you’re not alone.
- Communicate clearly: Say what you want or need to the people who can make change. Try to do this in a positive way even if people are not being respectful.
- Prepare for a different outcome: Sometimes things don’t happen the way that you want, so you need to prepare for this. If this happens, you can always try again.
