Supported Decision Making: From Justice for Jenny to Justice for All!

Jonathan Martinis and Peter Blanck tells the story of Jenny Hatch, including how she lost her rights under guardianship and won them back when she showed the court that she uses Supported Decision-Making (SDM) to make her own decisions with help from people she trusts. They’ll also show you how you can use SDM in your life, with family members, or people you support. They’ll give you practical tips and model language to help you request, receive, and use SDM in the programs and life areas people with disabilities use every day, including Special Education, Vocational Rehabilitation, Person Centered Planning, Health Care, Money Management, and others. As you read this book, you’ll learn that SDM is for almost everyone and almost everyone can use SDM. The authors hope that people with disabilities and their families, friends, and professionals will use this book to help them develop customized SDM plans that protect their rights and empower them to make their own decisions.

You can email John: somethingelsejm@gmail.com

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National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making

The National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making (NRC-SDM) builds on and extends the work of Quality Trust’s Jenny Hatch Justice Project by bringing together vast and varied partners to ensure that input is obtained from all relevant stakeholder groups including older adults, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), family members, advocates, professionals and providers. The NRC-SDM partners bring nationally recognized expertise and leadership on SDM, representing the interests of and receiving input from thousands of older adults and people with I/DD. They have applied SDM in groundbreaking legal cases, developed evidence-based outcome measures, successfully advocated for changes in law, policy and practice to increase self-determination and demonstrated SDM to be a valid, less-restrictive alternative to guardianship.

Learn More About the National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making

Using Charting the LifeCourse for Supported Decision Making

Charting the LifeCourse is a framework that can help plan for and build decision making skills. We recommend the resources of the Nexus team at the University of Missouri at Kansas City for help with learning about it. To get you started, they have a dedicated page on their website with materials that are designed to help individuals, families, and professionals explore areas where a person may need support with decision-making, plan what that support should look like and how it can be provided, and identify the resources needed to make it happen.

Charting the LifeCourse – Exploring Life Domains for Supported Decision Making