The Australian Citizen Advocacy Study Group held its inaugural meeting in South Australia in April 2016. The group comprises of well-motivated individuals who genuinely want to learn about, and/or deepen their understanding of, Citizen Advocacy (CA). Our unequivocal commitment is to the Citizen Advocacy concept and scheme as developed by Wolf Wolfensberger, and described in a number of publications, most notably Standards for Citizen Advocacy Program Evaluation (CAPE) by John O’Brien and Wolf Wolfensberger.
The group has met in Sunshine Coast, Sydney, Sunbury (VIC), Canberra, and Auckland, and most recently in Adelaide for the third time, in May 26-27 2024.
The two-day Program features presentations which examine the theory and practice of the Citizen Advocacy Model of freely-given, unpaid advocacy relationships. Involvement allows for networking with people from other Citizen Advocacy programs, including meet and greets, and dinners. Most members commit to self-fund their participation to alleviate any reliance on program funding.
Anyone interested in knowing more about the Study Group is welcome to get in touch, or submit their expression of interest.
At the Advancing Citizen Advocacy Conference, held in Melbourne Australia, 2023, Jenny Smith gave an excellent overview of the study group, and its goals in her presentation.