People First is a self-advocacy organization operated by and for people with mental (intellectual) handicaps, with help from nonvoting non-disabled advisors. People First has been in existence for about a decade. Curtis describes "good" advisors as being:
People who have severe disabilities have lived under centuries of legalized dependency and ostracism. With every law that showed the liberalizing of society's commitment to disabled people has come the realization by disabled people that discrimination in the community didn't really end. This discrimination continued because oppressive changes were introduced to limit society's obligations and the few progressive changes that were introduced were never supported financially. It has become obvious that institutional prejudice shall not be overcome by good intentioned but uncoordinated and financially unsupported changes.
