Supported Decision-Making Service

Supported Decision-Making Service for Persons with Disabilities | Service Model

The Human Rights Center for People with Disabilitis

1. Familiarity

: It is recommended that the supporter gets acquainted with person's different

supporter providers with the latter's consent, and meet them together with the person.

2. Coordinating expectations

: The supporter enters a person's life and therefore their role and

how it interfaces with other supporter providers should be clearly defined. Meanwhile, it must

be clarified that the supporter will speak about the person with others only with the person's

knowledge, consent and to the extent possible, presence. In addition, the difference between

the role of the supporter and other care professionals should also be made clear.

3. Advocating and enlisting external support:

Supported decision-making can also include an

element of advocacy and enlisting external support for the person's decisions. The supporter

should help the person advocate and enlist the support of people and institutions around them

to join in the process and, when necessary, help the supported person with resistance from the

environment.

M. Supporter training and hands-on counseling

The training and hands-on counseling provided to the supporters along the way is of great

importance. The guiding principles for training and hands-on counseling are as follows:

1. Field-based training

: Supporters' training should be based on the practical, daily experiences

of persons with disabilities. Therefore, the theoretical background for supported decision-

making and the rights of persons with disabilities should take second place, and the emphasis

should be put on the practical aspects of the support.

2. Core values of the service

: The training should express the core values of supported decision-

making which include a human rights approach to persons with disabilities and their right

to make decisions, and a critical approach to disability that sees disability as the product of

the interaction between a person and an environment that fails to accommodate their needs.

The supporter's role is to help accommodate the entire field of decision-making to the person.

Consequently, supporters' training should refrain from reinforcing stigmas and from making

generalizations about persons with disabilities, and should enable persons with disabilities

participate in the training itself.

3. Individual and group hands-on counseling

:We recommend that supporters undergo a training

course before they begin their role. However, the core of supporter training is achieved through

hands-on counseling provided throughout the support period. This includes group sessions

with the participation of all supporters, intended for peer learning and the establishment of a

professional support community. At the same time, individual hands-on counseling should be

provided to enable each supporter to thoroughly discuss the different support processes they

are participating in.

to this report consists of a detailed summary of the training and hands-on counseling

provided during the pilot.