Hi all,
There’s a buzz developing about Supported Decision-Making* here in Queensland and around the country - especially with the NDIS coming! Some say that people with decision-making disabilities - including many with intellectual, mental health and cognitive disabilities or acquired brain injuries - may benefit from this new approach to decision-making. Some say that Supported Decision-Making is just a new expression for what people are already doing. Others say that Supported Decision-Making is no decision-making panacea.
Good, bad or indifferent, we at QAI think it’s a good time to get together to learn more about what it is, and to start to ask some tough questions about whether it’s right for this State. We’ve asked Australian authorities on SD-M - like John Brayley, SA’s Public Advocate, and Penny Weller at RMIT - to come and talk to us at a forum here in Brisbane in Late June this year.
So if you’re wondering what supported decision-making is or you know what it is and want to hear or say more about it, Queensland Advocacy Incorporated invites you to attend this full day forum on Supported Decision-Making this June.
Help us gauge interest in this event by just hitting reply to this email or please contact Karlie at QAI on 3844 4200 or by replying to this email (at qai@qai.org.au by next Friday, 1 March 2013).
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via the above contact details.
We hope to see you at the event!
We would be grateful if you could please distribute this email to your networks!
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*Brief Overview:
What’s Supported Decision-Making?
http://www.opa.sa.gov.au/documents/08_News_&_Articles/Supported%20Decision%20Making.pdf – See John Brayley’s speech.
In a nutshell, SD-M is a potential game-changer for many people with disabilities or mental health related incapacity.
Supported Decision-Making is:
- about supporting people to make their own decisions
- person centred and human rights-based
- sometimes an alternative to Guardianship orders
- about implementing Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
No Australian guardianship jurisdiction currently supports Supported Decision-Making. Guardianship legislation in Australia provides for combinations of ‘best interests’ and ‘substitute’ decision-making. Supported Decision-Making would be a third and complementary option -sometimes, but not always, an alternative to the other two forms. Supported Decision-Making is grounded in Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to this Article, States Parties agree to ensure that people with disabilities have the decision-making supports they need to exercise their legal capacity. While Queensland’s Guardianship and Administration Act 2000 presumes capacity, it sets down no legislative mechanism that would ensure decision-making support for those judged to lack capacity for a matter. In effect Queensland’s court appointed guardians make decisions based partly by assessing the person’s ‘best interests’, and partly using a degree of substituted judgement, meaning that a Guardian might consider what they believe the person would want if the person had the capacity to judge for themselves (even if the Guardian does not consider that to be in the person’s best interests).
Supported decision-making supports do not have to have a legislative mandate. But whether legislated or no, supported decision-making involves:
1. a decision-making contract between a supporter and the person, that sets out -
a. the matters about which decisions will be made
b. duration
c. the step-by-step mechanism by which decisions will be made
2. actual decisions made by the person, even when the consequences of those decisions may not be in the person’s best interests.
The Supported Decision-Making of the South Australian trial, for example, does not require legislative change.
If Supported Decision-Making were to be legislatively supported we may need voluntary decision-making supporters.
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