This form closes on Thursday, 4th of June 2026 at 5pm.

We are Youth Disability Advocacy Service (YDAS). We are running a program with Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA). 

It is called Neurodivergent LGBTQIA+ Youth Community Leadership Program. We call it Local Community Leaders Program or LCL for short. 

The program is for neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ young people. The goal of the program is to improve your leadership and advocacy skills for you and your community. 

Complete this form if you are interested in being part of this program.

Who can apply: 

• Aged 18 - 25

• Lives in Victoria

• Identifies as neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+

  • Diagnosis is not required. It's how you identify.

  • You can learn more about who the program is for here.

What's involved:

• The program is free. You don't need to pay to join.

• You will attend workshops with a small group of 12 people.
  

• The workshops will be run by 2x facilitators who are disabled people.
  

• The workshops will improve your leadership and advocacy skills.
  

• Everyone who completes the workshops will help create and run a Community Summit in 2027.

• The Community Summit will have discussion and activity with your community to discuss issues important to them.

When:

• There are 20 workshops.

• You must attend at least 10 workshops to graduate the program.

• The workshops will be once per week on Thursdays from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.

• There will be a one week break every 5 weeks.
  

Where:

• Most workshops will be online only.

• Some workshops will be hybrid, which means you can choose to attend in-person or online.

• The in-person location is at the YDAS office in the city: level 14, 242 Exhibition Street, Melbourne.

• If you live in regional or rural Victroia, we can pay for your travel and accommodation.

Possible changes:

• As we get closer to the workshops dates, some parts of this plan might change. 

• We will talk to participants to make sure they have the right information to attend.

• If in doubt, please apply anyway and we can talk!

For more information go to Local Community Leaders Program > YDAS

About this form.

We will ask you questions about your lived experience, who you are, and where you are from. We ask this because we want to choose participants with different experiences to participate in the program.

You might feel this form is long. There is a link at the bottom to save your progress and complete it later. Once you click the link, you will be given a web address you can save, or the option of giving your email address to be sent the link.

We can help you fill out the form. You can contact us.

Contact:

• Please contact us if you have any questions.

• Email: youngpeople@ydas.org.au

• Phone or text: 0472 635 607 or 0447 678 653

Great work! Remember to click the save button at the bottom to automatically save your repsonses so you can come back to them later! Now keep on going.

In this next section, we will ask about who you are and why you want to join this program.

Please do not share traumatic stories from your life. You can read Sharing your story safely by YACVic for support.

You can answer the below questions by writing in the text boxes, or uploading an audio or video file.

In this section we make sure you understand how the program will run. We also learn more about what you might need to attend the workshops.

• There are 20 workshops.

• You must attend at least 10 workshops to graduate the program.

• We prefer you attend all the sessions.

• The workshops will be once per week on Thursdays from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.

• There will be a one week break every 5 weeks.
  

Nearly there! This is the last section.

Privacy and consent

If you submit this form then you are giving us consent to store and use personal information about you. Filling out this form does not mean you will automatically be offered a spot in the program.

Only YDAS staff will have access to this form, but we may use parts of this information in a de-identifed way to report to Government Departments and other organisations that can benefit from what we learn in the project. De-identified means we will not shrare your name or identifying details. We will use the information we get to choose participants for this project and report on the project in an aggregated way (for example, showing the percentage of participants in different groups). We will also use it to provide accessible and inclusive spaces for participants. 

If you do not want to share this information you do not have to fill out this form. You can also ask us to delete it. You can contact us on youngpeople@ydas.org.au or text/call 0472 635 607 or 0447 678 653 if you have questions or concerns or want to apply in a different way.

We have a privacy policy that explains how we use any information we collect. You can view our privacy policy here.

We have a feedback and complaints policy. We encourage you to give us feedback or make a complaint by going to this page.

We are a child safe organisation. You can learn about how we safeguard children and young people’s safety here. By participating in the project you agree to join us in our commitment to child safety.