Stir Up Advocacy

The Purple Cat and Golden String Radio welcomes Ricki White and her colleagues to spread their word via online radio waves. Ricki is a member of our community of special needs, and has worked hard with her mother and friends to create a self-advocacy group call “S.T.I.R. it up”. The acronym in this name stands for Steps Toward Independence & Responsibility. Project STIR is a training program for self advocates designed to provide individuals with tools to advocate for their rights, needs, and desires as an adult with disabilities, and to also gain leadership experience.

The group focuses on inspiring and encouraging these individuals to take charge of themselves; to make their own decisions. These may be simple decisions, such as where to eat, where to shop, or what to wear, to more important decisions, such as where to work, how to manage your transportation, who to live with, and/or important decisions about your health.

In their presentations, you can hear the determination in Ricki’s voice as she shares her story and instances in which she used her own voice to achieve her goals. In turn, it motivates our clients to speak of situations in which they too, have used their own voice. In the pictures shown, you can see our own Claudia Cadwallader speaking about a time when she spoke up about a matter pertaining to her own living situation, and so proud of herself she was! It would be great to hear of others’ stories of self-determination and self-achievement!

If you are interested in joining this group, or in learning about becoming a self- advocate, you can check out their Facebook page for more information: www.facebook.com/stiritupselfadvocacyactiongroup

pc-touhup-2

pc-touhup-3

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.