Supported Decision Making

WE MAKE INCLUSION HAPPEN by collaborating on supported decision making resources and capacity building.

Supported Decision Making is for people who may need support to make decisions. They may need support because their decision making capacity is impaired due to age, disability, acquired brain injury or mental illness.

Supported Decision Making is also for people sharing their lives with a person who has impaired decision making. It offers a way to give support that enables the person with impaired capacity to live the life they would choose for themselves, regardless of their disability.

Supported Decision Making happens when one person gives another person as much support as they need to be involved in the decisions that are important to them. With support some people can be fully engaged in all parts of a decision. People with more significant support needs, or making very complex decisions, might be supported to express their will and preference. Whoever the person and whatever their decision, supported decision making recognises that, with support, all people can be engaged in the decisions that are important to them.

The ACT Government has been a strong supporter in the development of Supported Decision Making (SDM) over several years and has been proud of local organisations leading the nation in developing resources and progressing the conversation on ways that people with disability can be supported to have control over their own lives. Advocacy organisations ADACAS and Advocacy for Inclusion have been funded to deliver a project on SDM to reshape the culture of community and government from substitute decision making to a supported decision-making model.

This project raises awareness about supported decision making at an individual and systemic level. A series of workshops have enabled people with disability to create supported decision-making relationships, to participate more actively in decisions that affect them, be equipped with decision-making skills (along with their supporters), as well as providing professional development for health professionals, support workers, legal professionals, teachers and businesses.

Further information

ADACAS - Support My Decision website can be used as a resource for decision-makers and those supporting them. 

Advocacy for Inclusion has created a ten episode podcast on Supported Decision Making, exploring the business of supporting other people when they are making decisions and ask for help. You can listen through Buzzsprout, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Episode One takes a deep dive into how important and powerful decision-making is.  

Upcoming training

Substitute decision making arrangments: 

• Public Trustee and Guardian page - The Public Trustee and Guardian (PTG) may only be appointed as guardian of last resort. 
• PTG website - What is Guardianship? and Financial Management