What we do
Vision
CYDA's vision is that children and young people with disability are valued and living empowered lives with equality of opportunity.
Purpose
CYDA's purpose is to ensure governments, communities and families, are empowering children and young people with disability to fully exercise their rights and aspirations.
Our ideal future
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A lifetime of choices |
Children and young people with disability:
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Independent and powerful |
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| Leading the way |
Children and young people with disability:
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What we will do
- Drive inclusion
- Create equitable life pathways and opportunities
- Lead changes in community attitudes and aspirations
- Support young people to take control
- Call out discrimination, abuse, and neglect
How we will do it
Drive inclusion
- Ensure families, caregivers, communities and systems have high expectations and aspirations for children and young people
- Drive inclusion from the earliest age, focusing on early learning and school
- Create inclusive environments where children and young people are welcomed and valued
Create equitable life pathways and opportunities
- Increase pathways to post-school independence
- Place children and young people at the centre of policy and reform
- Leverage the flexibility of digital inclusion and entrepreneurship
Lead changes in community attitudes and aspirations
- Develop the voices of young leaders through co-design and paid opportunities
- Change community attitudes about children and young people with disability
- Build a network of allies to support social change
Support young people to take control
- Grow the confidence, leadership capability, and agency of young people
- Connect young people with change agents and networks, building an ecosystem
- Provide platforms and opportunities for young people to use their expertise to solve problems
Call out discrimination, abuse, and neglect
- Highlight systemic injustices and drive reform
- Coordinate action to ensure rights are upheld
- Support and empower children and young people, and their families and caregivers, to hold those in power to account
What we value and how we will work
Our work is rights-based
- We are led by the direct experiences and diverse voices and visions of children and young people with disability across Australia
- We ground our work in evidence and a human rights approach
- We support First Nations young people and their communities
We are bold and creative
- We work in respectful, flexible and empowering ways
- We recognise and value the individual strengths and experiences of those we work with
- We prioritise collaboration and bringing others on the journey of change
- We are open to new ideas and value diverse thinking
- We are a learning organisation and are ever evolving
We hold ourselves and others accountable
- We prioritise accessibility and inclusion, and embrace intersectionality
- We hold ourselves and others to account for creating an equitable and inclusive society for children and young people with disability
- We authentically represent our members and children and young people with disability