STUDENT RESOURCE CENTRE Self Advocacy Workshop

WHAT IS SELF ADVOCACY?

An informed decision made by students to achieve a specific desired goal or outcome

Can you be more specific?

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES

• Self-knowledge

• It is important to have a clear understanding of your specific support needs and be able to clearly express your needs to support staff, faculty, and administration.

• Get to know the support resources on campus so that you know where to go when you experience challenges.

• Identify areas of potential support needs and plan to meet with the appropriate support providers ahead of your actual support challenges

• Seek support ahead of deadlines

WHY?

• University support services are different from high school support services • There will be different expectations & challenges

• For example, academic; culture; mental health

• Know that success in the university landscape requires proactive support seeking habits

IMPORTANT SUPPORT SEEKING HABITS

• Pre & post meeting planning (what meeting?)

• Interpersonal communication skills

PLANNING & ORGANIZATION PRE-MEETING

• Organize your support needs into short-term and long-term support categories

PRE-MEETING:IMPORTANT POINTS TO

CONSIDER • What do you want the outcome to be? What are you trying to accomplish? Short-

term? (Day to day) Long-term? • Practice describing your needs with someone you feel comfortable with ahead of

your scheduled meeting• Write down your questions• Prepare to negotiate • Write down few support options to suggest to the person you are going to meet

with. Short-term? Long-term? This is a good way to ensure you are able to meet your meeting objective

PRE-MEETING

• Practice asking for support with someone you are comfortable with

POST-MEETING

• Plan to send an email to thank the person for meeting with you

• Plan to suggest a date for a follow-up meeting

• Plan to evaluate your performance and set up an objective for the next meeting

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• Non-verbal communication skills • Make eye contact • Sit up • Maintain an assertive, and clear tone • Listen attentively • Take notes

VERBAL INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• Repeat what the person says to you to make sure you got the main point • Ask the person to repeat their statement if you don’t understand what they are

trying to say• Highlight your reason for the meeting in clear, concise language

SUMMARY

• Pre & Post Meeting Suggestions • Write down all your support needs before arriving on campus • Write down all your support related questions • Write down few support options to suggest to the person you are going to

meet with• Practice asking for support with someone you are comfortable with • Divide your support needs into short-term and long-term goals• Meet with someone to identify appropriate support resources• Ask for help well in advance before things start to go wrong

 

• Interpersonal communication skills • Make eye contact with people when talking to them• Sit up • Maintain, an assertive, and clear tone • Listen attentively • Take good notes • Highlight the main points of a meeting at the end to ensure that you got the

intended message • Reiterate your objective at the end of the meeting in clear, concise language

SELF-ADVOCACY DIAGRAM