Illinois Voices is a self-advocacy initiative designed to empower people with developmental disabilities to make their own decisions, exercise their rights, and express their individual strengths and desires. Funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services, the initiative was developed with input from persons with disabilities, their family members, and service providers.
Illinois Voices is a comprehensive approach with utilizes classroom and peer training to teach self-advocacy skills to people with developmental disabilities. It provides families and service providers with information and resources to create and sustain person-centered environments which support self-advocates and the self-advocacy movement. It also provides opportunities to people with developmental disabilities to learn leadership skills and train their peers.
The self-advocacy movement is about equal opportunities, equal value and equal power for persons with developmental disabilities. Illinois Voices is committed to increasing an individual’s ability to both change their life and contribute to improving the service system which provides their supports. An individual with a disability said it best when she said, "I just want people to see what’s inside… what’s in my heart. Then we can all be heard." That is the goal of Illinois Voices.
