2. Developing the story of the history
The story of the history developed over the six years from
•
The memories of the History Group
•
The memories of the self advocates and supporters of self advocacy
that we interviewed
•
The pictures and documents we had from our History
•
Talking a lot about what it all meant
•
What we knew and what we found out about self advocacy in Victoria
over the years
2
Self advocacy is recognised as an important part of the advocacy movement in Australia. We have researched the history of Reinforce, the first self advocacy group in Victoria which started in 1981. We have worked as a collaborative group to do this.
In this presentation we will present a book of the words and pictures that tells the history of Reinforce and the story of self advocacy in Victoria.
Amanda will talk about when she first went to Middle Park – who she met there and the things she remembers about those days.
Amanda will talk about being at the Lancefield camp and the kinds of things they talked about there – it was about getting away, being independent, having the time to talk about the things that mattered to people with an intellectual disability away from services
Amanda will talk about the first office of Reinforce – where it was and what it was like to have an office
Patsie will introduce this period – saying that David Banfield was an important source of information for this period:
- It was a time of action – as David said they were “radical then”; 5 conferences and forums where Reinforce members joined with other self advocates from across Australia and internationally to talk about there rights. 8 members of Reinforce attended an International self advocacy conference in Tacoma Washington – Reinforce were named as a co-sponsor of the conference along with 6 self advocacy groups from the US and one from the UK. – Amanda will talk a little bit about what it was like to go to the conference in America
Patsie will talk about how self advocacy was becoming organised in Victoria
- they were involved in 3 protests in the early 1980s – mainly to do with housing and deinstitutionalisation; the most famous being the Drummond St Squat which took place from August 29 to September 5 in Drummond St Carlton. The squat was to raise awareness of the lack of affordable housing for people with intellectual disabilities - government agreed to run the house as emergency housing. When the squate was over Reinforce members drank a bottle of champagne with the Health Minister Tom Roper in his office; Amanda will talk a little bit about this.
– Reinforce received their first government funding in 1984 – during this period they became incorporated and began holding meetings with government on issues like deinstitutionalisation and housing
- The National Self Advocacy Resource Unit was funded by the Federal government and many people who had been involved in setting up Reinforce moved to work with this unit. People First Victoria was also established at this time
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Janice to talk about her memories of when the Kennett government came in and self advocacy funding was reduced
Patsie to say that Doug Pentland published his book – Doug’s story the struggle for a fair go. He does a number of talks associated with this
Patsie to talk about the Plain English Less Jargon campaign and video – funded by Myer Foundation – gave Reinforce a well needed shot in the arm – money, profile, something to use in their talks and training. Des McIntosh central to this campaign
Janice to talk about the changes at Reinforce in the 2000’s
some new people coming and going but the core group remains – hard to get and keep new member
Projects like Ownership of our own lives and Know your rights training big projects but only a few people involved in them
Trying to re invigorate the organisation – Social Group
Now very involved with the SARU – on the management group and some people do work with SARU
The history project has been really important – a way for people who have been around from the start to do something important to them, the organisation and self advocacy in Victoria.
Amanda - Talk about the memories doing the history raised for you – people, places, activities
This history shows how self advocacy has worked over time, what has helped it develop and what has been hard for self advocacy organisations.
This research is important because it is the first time the story of self advocacy has been told like this in Australia and what we have learned could shape what self advocacy might be in the future.
Important for people here today to think about the importance of self advocacy and what they can do to support the kind of work self advocacy does and the way people can feel included through self advocacy.
Janice to read what Doug said
We wanted to have a book that could show some of the main things that we have done through Reinforce self advocacy over the years and to put it in the same picture as what has happened in disability over the same time.
It is a legacy of our work in self advocacy – this means it leaves something behind for other people to learn from.
It has got pictures and copies of documents from the past 30 years and the words of some of the self advocates we interviewed and the supporters we interviewed.
