Community

NDFSI’s Community Advocacy Programme is part of NDFSI’s wider advocacy and representation structure. It is one of the foundation spaces of advocacy for us, as a pan-disability federation of community-based organisations. By using equality, social inclusion and anti-poverty goals in community development practice, NDFSI:

• Signposts member organisations to local government and decision-making structures, community support, capacity-building resources and funding.
• Supports frontline workers within member organisations to access resources, peer support and training, and access to DFI’s Family and Community-Based Support Workers Forum and NDFSI’s Self-Advocacy Programme.
• Provides avenues for greater social inclusion, lived experience representation and self-advocacy for disabled people including access to the NDFSI National Access for All Network and NDFSI’s Self-Advocacy Programme.
• Facilitates a process of collaboration, engagement, and consultation with people with disabilities, member organisations and other stakeholders such as the Local Government Management Agency’s (LGMA) Access Officer Network.

In recent times, the NDFSI community advocacy space has experienced significant requests to support disability inclusion within Local Authorities, Local Area Partnerships, Public Participation Networks, Access and Disability Networks. NDFSI delivers advocacy across key areas of public sector policy including County/City Development Plans, Local Economic and Community Plans (LECPs), Housing, Health Regions and Sláintecare, Public Realm and Active Travel, in collaboration with DFI’s Advocacy and Representation Programme, and using the UN CRPD.