Supported Decision-Making Service

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

The Human Rights Center for People with Disabilitis

Preface

In 2014, Bizchut launched a project funded by the European Union, entitled “My life in my hands

– Article 12”. The objective of the project was to promote the right of persons with disabilities

to make decisions regarding their lives on the basis of supported decision-making. This was an

added tier to our ongoing work on this issue. At first, Bizchut’s work plan for the project seemed

overambitious, but in retrospect, it was modest. Execution rarely surpasses planning, but it did

in this case: between 2014-2016, we have given more than 90 lectures and training sessions on

the issue to about 3,000 persons with disabilities, family members and professionals, including

family court judges. We have established and advanced a coalition of 20 organizations to push

for reform of the Guardianship Law and recognition for supported decision-making. We have

produced information sheets, video clips, and reports on the need for developing alternatives to

guardianship. We were partners in a historic move in the Knesset for the amendment of the law

and recognition of supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship. We ran the first

pilot of its kind in Israel on supported decision-making, designed to help formulate a model for

support. We helped individuals ask the courts to cancel guardianship and recognize alternatives.

As a result of all this, and thanks to the work of other partners in this struggle, the past few

years have been marked by growing support for the basic demand put forward by persons with

disabilities to be recognized as equal citizens and as persons with full legal capacity. This growing

trend of support has been observed among family members, government officials, organizations

and professionals.

The model presented here is one of the major products of Bizchut’s Article 12 Project. It is

the culmination of hundreds of hours of support and accompaniment provided to persons with

disabilities, and no fewer hours of thinking about how accompaniment and support should

be given. Many important partners from both the government and civil society have helped

formulate this model. Not all of them agreed with the conclusions and the proposed model, and

it is specifically because of this that we highly appreciate their consent to play a major part in the

learning and evaluation process. The model is solely Bizchut’s, and we view it as a starting point

that will undoubtedly go through many changes and transformations, as the reality of supported

decision-making takes shape. Over the next two years, Bizchut plans to advance training for the

role of ‘decision-making supporter’ based on this model.