Supported decision-making

This tool allows people with disabilities and with understanding, thinking, and communication difficulties to preserve their ability to decide with the support of another person. The tool varies depending on each situation and person’s needs.

People who use supported decision-making choose advisors they can trust—including friends, family members, or professionals—to act as ‘advocates’. Those who play this role help people with disabilities to understand and consider options in the face of a choice. They also provide them with tools so that the person can make an informed decision and communicate it (American Civil Liberties Union).

Examples include:
• Providing materials or information using simple language, in visual or audio form.
• Giving additional time to talk about the available options.
• Creating a list of pros and cons.
• Planning role playing activities to help the person understand the options.
• Accompanying the person to important appointments, to take notes and help them remember and talk about their options.
• Opening a joint bank account to manage financial decisions.

This tool represents a shift in the paradigm regarding substitute decision-making models or substitution of will, including interdiction. These approaches go against the human rights of people with disabilities by completely invalidating their ability to decide. These models gave guardians complete legal capacity over the person with disabilities, and the power to make all of their life decisions. To make appointments or adjustments pertaining to this legal entity, a court was necessary. Decisions were based on the person’s intelligence quotient and a medical assessment.

The possibility of making decisions with support protects people with disabilities from power imbalances that, often, make women and young persons with disabilities especially vulnerable because of gender-based violence and other forms of abuse and mistreatment (UNFPA-WEI, 2018).

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes the importance of autonomy and individual independence, including the freedom to make one’s own decisions. This holds true even when the person requires the support of others because this respects their right to legal capacity and their right to equal recognition before the law.