Investigating Systemic versus Individual Advocacy

Eleanor Christopher 

Keywords: Advocacy, Disability Justice, Lobbying Benefits, Individual Empowerment, Education

“Advocacy” can be kind of a buzzword. Furthermore, types of advocacy and the way advocacy is described can vary greatly depending on the field where it’s being discussed. Because of this wide range of definitions, specifications are necessary to begin this conversation, but not particularly useful. For the sake of this article today, I will define advocacy as “speaking up for someone or something, in order to achieve desired results which would not have been possible without intervention.” The field of advocacy I will be focusing on is that which is relevant to Mentor A Promise: advocacy from a social justice standpoint, focusing on achieving access to housing and disability resources for children. For this purpose, three types of advocacy generally can be agreed on as useful: self-, individual, and systems advocacy (The Borgen Project, 1).

Self-advocacy refers to your ability to effectively negotiate benefits for yourself. Individual advocacy occurs when a person or group communicates on behalf of others. Finally, systems advocacy focuses on changing the very laws that create the issues individuals must fight against. 

In disability access, self-advocacy would look like demanding your own accommodations. Individual advocacy would be going to bat for specific and individual students. Systems advocacy would involve lobbying local law-makers to change the accommodations allotted in the legislation. 

In regards to housing, self-advocacy could look like a family’s application for their child to remain at their current school despite housing fluctuations. Individual advocacy could involve a social worker acting on behalf of that family to get the same results. Systems advocacy would be taking action to address the root cause of housing instability, such as attempting to get stronger protections against evictions or more affordable housing for families. 

In the following paragraphs, I will delve into the efficacy and motivation behind all three types of advocacy and explore how one can turn into another. 

Focus on Home 

There is a framework, developed by Balcazar and others in 1996, that posits that advocacy is a linear progression (Balcazar et al). For example, one begins by learning to advocate for themselves. Once this is done, they can advocate for others. Having accomplished this much, it is only a matter of time before they can take this knowledge and apply it systemically. The logic behind this idea is that “individual advocacy perpetuates the need for individual advocacy, while systemic advocacy intends broad changes that reduce the need” for further advocacy (Rossetti et al 2021, 243). Analyzing this model, we find both the facilitators and the barriers to advocating on the home front. 

The work of Rossetti et al. in their study titled From Individual to Systemic Advocacy, Parents as Change Agents is particularly useful for understanding this concept. The study examined parental advocacy in improving outcomes and access to education for students with disabilities. The study found that parents are more likely to engage in individual advocacy, and in fact “utilised a greater variety of individual advocacy strategies” (Rossetti et al 2021, 232). This is mostly due to the lower barrier of entry for individual advocacy. While it is true that one would require a level of knowledge and time that might create a limiting factor for some, individual advocacy requires less of these things than systemic advocacy calls for. 

That being said, a main issue with individual advocacy is that it’s uneven. The barriers to access described previously are a hindrance to many, especially those families that are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). Those from traditionally underrepresented groups are less likely to advocate for themselves, because they do not start on a level playing field. 

An interesting finding by Rossetti et al. illustrates another weakness of individual advocacy. A main facilitator, the school personnel, can impact the effectiveness of advocacy. The study found that “those [parents] engaging in high levels of advocacy reported negative experiences with school personnel, while those engaging in low levels of advocacy reported positive experiences” (Rosetti et al 2021, 233). This discrepancy is evidence that individual advocacy faces stark limitations and moments when its influence will have run its course. It is then time to turn to systemic advocacy. 

Laying the Groundwork for the Future 

The definitions of advocacy used in this article come from the Borgen Project, a nonprofit that operates on the global stage, using systems advocacy to put pressure on legislatures to increase foreign aid targeted toward eliminating global extreme poverty. I mention them in this article to show how systems advocacy can be successful. They have been able, through lobbying, to garner support that led to the Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act in 2017, which emphasized education’s role in economic stability and social mobility. Through this act, it is estimated that the lives of 263 million children would be impacted. 

While this is an extreme example, and not one pertaining to domestic advocacy, it is important to highlight these successes. A 2014 survey discovered that parents engaged in disability education advocacy perceived “legislative advocacy as less effective than their (individual) advocacy in schools, medical clinics, and social services” (Rosetti et al 2021, 234). This is a misconception, and one that is dangerous to the general mission. Incremental change is still change and, especially when it takes place at a high level, can trickle down to affect a much wider net of people. 

Furthermore, to just focus on individual advocacy is to leave out an entire group who may not possess the ability to self-advocate. When determining the “quality of life” of a family, meaning their ability to gain access to what is needed for them to succeed, oftentimes the broader communities within which they live are not explicitly considered. This omission affects the accuracy of these determinations, because the opportunities the families are afforded are reliant on these factors. Furthermore, Sauer and Lalvani show that an analysis of family quality of life is essential for understanding the struggle to access equitable education for their children (2017). It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is for advocacy not to leave certain groups behind as they fight for change, and individual advocacy alone threatens to do this very thing. 

Conclusion 

It is incorrect to take from this article that systems advocacy is the only viable solution. That’s simply not the case: Any form of advocacy at all is still better than none, and one person helped is still one life changed. However, we can glean some important lessons — primarily, that both are necessary. Indeed, a concentrated effort must be made to merge the two forms, and has been in projects such as the Parent Empowerment and Action Project. This project is “resonant of the spirit of grassroots activism in which this group of families has historically engaged, and focuses on collective change, which can benefit all children” (Sauer and Lalvani 2017, 57). It works to teach parents how to begin advocating for more than just their child, and for expanding their community. Furthermore, collective action and solidarity among advocates can go a long way, as “parents found it easier to engage in legislative advocacy when doing so collectively with other parents” (Rosetti et al 2021, 241). Balcazar and others’ advocate development conceptual model was followed by only a minority of participants in Rossetti and others’ study, which shows that help in bridging the gap between individual and systems advocacy is needed. However, efforts show that both types of advocacy are in fact achievable, and we may only need to set our mind to bridging them. 

Bibliography 

Balcazar, Fabricio E., Christopher B. Keys, John F. Bertram, and Tom Rizzo. “Advocate Development in the Field of Developmental Disabilities: A Data-Based Conceptual Model.” Mental Retardation 34, no. 6 (1996): 341–351.

Lopez-Baez, Sandra I., and Matthew J. Paylo. “Social Justice Advocacy: Community Collaboration and Systems Advocacy.” Journal of Counseling & Development 87, no. 3 (2009): 276–283.

Rossetti, Zach, Meghan M. Burke, Kristina Rios, Janeth Aleman Tovar, Kristen Schraml-Block, Javier I. Rivera, Jaelee Cruz, and James D. Lee. “From Individual to Systemic Advocacy: Parents as Change Agents.” Exceptionality 29, no. 3 (2021): 232–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/09362835.2020.1850456.

Sauer, Janet Story, and Priya Lalvani. “From Advocacy to Activism: Families, Communities, and Collective Change.” Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities 14, no. 1 (2017): 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/jppi.12219.

The Borgen Project. “Success Tracker.” Accessed September 24, 2026. https://borgenproject.org/success-tracker/.

The Borgen Project. “Topic 3: Advocacy and Lobbying.” Accessed September 24, 2026. https://borgenproject.org/topic-3-advocacy-and-lobbying/.