Change is coming to disability advocacy in Australia — and this matters to everyone who uses or supports advocacy. How advocacy is funded and designed shapes whether people can actually access help when they need it most. 

The National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP) has been the long-running funding program for disability advocacy organisations.  

It will soon be replaced. 

The Individual Disability Advocacy Program (IDAP) is the Australian Government’s new national program. It is designed to ensure that people with disability can access independent, person-centred advocacy when navigating complex systems, protecting their rights, or resolving problems that affect their safety, wellbeing, or inclusion. IDAP may also consolidate other government programs, streamlining support across systems. 

IDAP is a key part of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. This represents the most significant change to disability advocacy in nearly 30 years — shaping how people experience support at critical moments in their lives. 

At DANA, we are committed to ensuring that people with disability remain front and centre during transition. As part of the shift to IDAP, DANA provided advice to Government, using a person-centred approach. This means that every recommendation we made was grounded in lived experience and practical advocacy knowledge. 

Why You Need to Know about IDAP 

Changes to advocacy programs can affect when people get help, how easy it is to access support, and how safe people feel asking for it. 

The government proposes that IDAP will: 

• Help people with disability, families, carers, and kin access advocacy when they need it. 
• Promote more culturally safe advocacy. 
• Build organisational capability for high-quality, inclusive, and responsive advocacy. 
• Support advocacy that addresses discrimination and reduces barriers to inclusion. 

This is a significant change — it will affect how advocacy works for people, who can access it, and how safe and empowered people feel when they do. 

A Person-Centred Approach 

To make sure IDAP works in the real world, we started with the experiences of people who use advocacy by consulting directly with our members to understand how advocacy works in practice and where it can be improved.  

Using a human-centred design approach, we mapped the full advocacy journey for a person with a disability from first awareness, through seeking help, intake, and ongoing support. 

This process revealed: 

• Where people experience barriers. 
• Where systems feel confusing, overwhelming, or unsafe. 
• Where advocacy has the greatest impact. 

From this, we developed practical design principles to improve outcomes for people with disability. 

As a result, we:  

• Delivered a Final Summary Report in October 2025. 
• Submitted a formal submission on IDAP to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing in January 2026. This outlined a clear vision for what a person-centred IDAP should look like, grounding recommendations in people’s lived experience of advocacy. 
• Provided an additional issues paper, Emerging Design Tensions for the new individual disability advocacy program:  A Person-Centred Approach, which highlighted emerging design tensions in program design and offered constructive guidance on how these could be addressed without compromising people’s experience. 

Our recommendations are grounded in lived experience and the realities of advocacy work. 

What We Put Forward 

Our submission focuses on how advocacy actually works for people.. 

It includes two interlinked components: 

1. Key Recommendations
   Our submission recommended service design principles that describe clear conditions that must be in place for an independent disability advocacy program to work in practice. 

2. A Journey View
   A detailed, person-centred view of how people with disability experience advocacy — from first contact to resolution — providing an evidence base for reform. 

Together, these ensure IDAP works not just in theory, but in the real and complex circumstances people face. 

Our Recommendations 

Each recommendation focuses on what people need in practice when they seek advocacy. 

Recommendation 1: IDAP must be designed and governed around people’s lived experience  

IDAP should be shaped by the real experiences of people with disability—it should be person-centred. 

Their input should shape policies and day-to-day operations. Involving people with disability in meaningful ways helps create a program that is practical, rights-based, and responsive to real needs.  

This principle should guide governance, decision-making, and every stage of program design. 

Recommendation 2: Local, trusted advocacy presence is the anchor 

Local advocacy organisations are known, trusted, and embedded in communities. They cannot be replaced by national tools or efficiency measures. 

This is important: 

• People in crisis or low-trust settings rely on familiar local advocates 
• Local knowledge improves access, intake, and resolution 
• Strengthening rather than replacing these organisations protects workforce stability and trust 

Recommendation 3: Locally based and skilled frontline advocates 

People experiencing isolation, crisis, or systemic barriers need advocates who can match the complexity of their circumstances. 

This requires: 

• Trust-building and person-centred support 
• Supported decision-making 
• Trauma-informed and culturally safe practice 
• Clear pathways for advocate skill development, including lived experience 

Advocates also need supervision, training, and safe working conditions to do their jobs well. 

Recommendation 4: Intake is core advocacy, not admin 

The first contact with advocacy is critical. It is where trust is built, risks are identified, and complex situations are untangled. 

IDAP should treat intake as skilled frontline work, not just paperwork or a gatekeeping step. 

Recommendation 5: Connection is a system responsibility, not the person’s 

People should not have to navigate complex systems alone to get advocacy. 

IDAP should: 

• Embed advocacy at key decision points 
• Equip “connectors” with clear information 
• Protect independence and maintain low-effort pathways for direct access 

Recommendation 6: Equity mechanisms for hard-to-reach people 

Some people may never be able to contact advocacy services on their own, especially if they live in isolated, closed, or segregated settings. 

To make advocacy fair, access cannot rely on people finding it themselves. Equity must be active, not passive: advocates and systems need to reach out, respond to local circumstances, and make sure a minimum standard of access is guaranteed for everyone. 

This ensures that no one is left behind, even in situations where barriers make seeking help difficult. 

A Journey View of Advocacy

Advocacy often begins when someone is under pressure, unsure of their rights, or facing a system that feels confusing and overwhelming.  

We’ve mapped that the main stages of advocacy are: Awareness → Access → Intake & Prioritisation → Individualised Supports.  

A good advocacy service supports people at every stage. It meets people where they are, untangles complex systems, and keeps their voice, choice, and control at the centre.  

Why This Matters 

When advocacy works well, people can assert their rights, make informed choices, and feel safer navigating complex systems. 

IDAP has the potential to shape the quality and accessibility of advocacy for people with disability. By embedding our person-centred recommendations, advocacy can be: 

• Safe, independent, and accessible 
• Culturally safe and equitable 
• Built on local, trusted presence 
• Grounded in lived experience and practical advocacy 

For advocates, people with disability, families, and the broader community, staying informed about these changes is essential. The design and implementation choices made now will directly impact who gets support, how they get it, and the quality of that support. 

What Comes Next 

This blog has focused on the “what” and the “why” of IDAP — and why the person-centred approach in our submission matters for the future of advocacy. 

In our follow-up blog, we’ll explore applying a person-centred lens to address design tensions and the complexity of IDAP reform decisions.  

If you are part of the advocacy sector, stay informed, share this information, and think critically about design decisions — the people you support rely on it. 

Because at its core, disability advocacy is about ensuring people with disability are heard, supported, and able to exercise their rights. IDAP must keep that person-centred purpose at the heart of every design decision.