Breaking Through Barrier Advocacy Workbooks

The Advocacy Workbook Series is a collection of twelve workbooks designed to guide families of Deaf and hard of hearing children through the everyday realities of advocacy. Each workbook connects to a workshop in our Breaking Through Barriers program and provides clear, step-by-step tools to help families take action with confidence.

Inside, you’ll find practical resources such as templates, checklists, and planning guides that make advocacy easier to manage. The series covers three main areas: building sustainable advocacy foundations, navigating the NDIS, and achieving genuine inclusion in education.

Together, these workbooks create a practical toolkit families can return to whenever needed — supporting immediate problem-solving while also building long-term advocacy skills and confidence

1.Push, Pause, Pivot

The Push, Pause, Pivot workbook is a practical guide for parents of Deaf and hard of hearing children to prevent advocacy burnout. It helps families recognise when to push for urgent action, when to pause and rest, and when to pivot toward new strategies. Through reflection tools, check-ins, and mapping activities, the workbook supports parents to protect their energy, focus on what matters most, and advocate with clarity and confidence

Push,Pause,Pivot-Preventing Advocacy Burnout

2.NDIS 101- What Every Parent of a Deaf child Needs to Know

The NDIS 101 workbook is a practical companion for parents of Deaf and hard of hearing children navigating the NDIS. It brings together clear explanations, real examples, and ready-to-use templates to help you:

• Understand how the NDIS works and what your rights are.

• Translate your child’s everyday needs into NDIS language.

• Build strong goals and requests for supports like Auslan, therapies, and assistive technology.

• Prepare for planning meetings, reviews, and appeals with confidence.

It is designed to be step-by-step, empowering, and grounded in lived experience. You don’t need to read it all at once — use it as a reference guide you can return to whenever you need clarity, ideas, or advocacy tools.

NDIS_101_What_Every_Parent_of_a_Deaf_Child_Needs 

3.The NDIS Game Plan

 NDIS Game Plan is a practical guide for families of Deaf/deaf children.
It’s part of our parent toolkit, alongside NDIS 101 (the basics) and Push, Pause, Pivot (advocacy wellbeing).

This workbook helps you:

• Understand what the NDIS can fund for your child

• Prepare for planning meetings and reviews

• Explore Deaf-specific supports like Auslan in the Home, Deaf mentors, and interpreters

• Link your child’s needs to the right goals and evidence

It’s built from lived experience, not theory — giving families tools, reflection exercises, and real examples to make the NDIS work for you.

NDIS GAME PLAN 2025 

4.Fixing Broken Plans: NDIS Reviews, Variations and Knowing Your Rights

A practical workbook that gives families the tools, templates, and step-by-step guidance to fix NDIS plans that no longer meet their child’s needs. It helps parents understand how to request plan variations, lodge reviews, appeal decisions, and keep supports in place — providing the clarity and confidence needed to navigate the NDIS and protect their child’s rights.

Fixing Broken Plans Workbook 

5. Families in Partnership – Navigating the DIAP

This workbook has been developed to support families of Deaf/deaf children, and children with disability, to confidently engage with their local communities and contribute to more inclusive environments.

Local councils shape many of the spaces where everyday life happens — libraries, playgrounds, community centres, sporting activities, events, information systems, and emergency communication. These spaces can either enable participation or quietly create barriers.

For many families, inclusion is not experienced through policy — it is experienced in these everyday moments.

This workbook exists to help bridge the gap between policy and practice.

It provides practical guidance to help families understand how Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs) work, where councils have responsibility, and how to engage in ways that lead to real, measurable change. Rather than expecting families to navigate complex systems alone, this resource translates those systems into clear, functional tools that support informed and constructive participation.

At its core, this workbook is built on a simple but important principle:

Families are partners in community planning — not passive recipients of services.

Through this resource, families are supported to:

• understand how inclusion is planned and delivered at a local level
• identify where barriers exist across everyday community settings
• engage with councils in a clear, informed and practical way
• propose achievable, outcomes-focused solutions
• track progress and contribute to long-term change

Importantly, this workbook does not sit in isolation.

While the focus is on local council DIAPs, inclusion is shaped across multiple systems. In New South Wales, all government departments and many public authorities are also required to develop and implement Disability Inclusion Action Plans under the Disability Inclusion Act 2014 (NSW).

This means inclusion is a shared responsibility across:

• local councils
• state systems such as education, health, transport and community services
• federally funded systems such as the NDIS
• and community organisations and providers

This workbook helps families understand how these systems connect — where councils lead, where they influence, and where other systems sit alongside them.

Because real inclusion does not happen in silos.

It happens when systems align, and when lived experience is embedded into planning, design and decision-making.

This is not about asking for special treatment. It is about ensuring that community spaces, programs and information are accessible, safe and inclusive — as they should be.

The workbook is designed to be flexible and practical. Families can use it at any stage — whether they are just starting to explore their local DIAP or are already engaging with councils and community processes.

Because inclusion doesn’t happen by chance.

It happens when families are informed, supported, and recognised as essential partners in building communities that work for everyone.

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