 Citizen Advocacy programs have therefore been fragile.Nevertheless, Citizen Advocacy programs are still operative in a number of states and provinces, and in Australasia, and some have been around for decades.Although the number of people they have been able to serve is relatively small, the individual unpaid advocates they recruit have protected and saved the lives of many impaired people; obtained for them housing, work, schooling; been by their side as they have endured family break-up, homelessness, and imprisonment; protected their rights; reunited them with estranged family; taken them into their own families—and in many other ways revealed the power of freely-given relationships to make a positive difference in the lives of vulnerable persons.