Activate Your Advocacy Parent Leadership (AYA)

You already know how to advocate for your child. Activate Your Advocacy (AYA) helps you take that voice further.

This free, virtual series is for parents and caregivers of children and youth with disabilities. It's for families who are ready to lead. Tap into your lived experiences and voice to create lasting change for families across Oregon.

AYA mixes self-paced learning with live online sessions where families meet, learn, and practice new skills to use in your community and in larger systems advocacy.

You don't need any past leadership or advocacy experience. You just need to be ready to learn and act.

AYA helps you take action with other families and the wider disability community. That might mean joining a committee or advisory group. It might mean speaking up in community conversations. Or it might mean helping shape decisions about services and systems across Oregon.

In this series, you will:

  • Learn how to grow from advocating for your own family to leading broader change.

  • See how families can help shape systems.

  • Bring your voice to decision-making spaces.

  • Build skills and confidence to help drive change.

  • Connect with other family leaders.

  • Find real ways to get involved.

Four adults sit at a table looking forward. A woman with long dark hair has her arm raised and is talking.

Fall 2026 Cohort: What To Know

  • By Oct. 16: Register and finish an assigned online training (link in your confirmation). Completion of this training is a prerequisite to joining the full cohort.

  • Mon., Oct 26.- Tues., Nov. 3: Self-paced work.

    Wed., Nov. 4 (6:00-7:30 PM): Live online session

    Thurs, Nov 5.- Tues., Nov 17: Self-paced work

    Wed., Nov 18 (6:00-7:30 PM): Live online session

    Thurs. Nov 19- Tues., Dec 8: Self-paced work

    Wed., Dec. 9 (6:00-7:30 PM): Live online session

    Thurs, Dec 10- Fri., Dec. 18: Self-paced work

  • Activate Your Advocacy is a program of FACT Oregon, Oregon's federally and state designated Parent Training and Information Center for Special Education (PTI).

    Our mission is to empower families, youth, and communities to navigate disability systems and advocate together for disability justice and policy change so that people with disabilities have what they need to thrive at home, in school, and in their communities.

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