Supporting Decision Making: Learning from Self-Advocate Experience

Project Description

The purpose of this project is to develop and implement a planning process, Deciding My Future, that will support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families to develop supported decision-making plans based on the goals of the individual with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

To accomplish this, researchers will partner with the Self-Advocate Coalition of Kansas to combine the lived experience of Supported Decision Making as currently practiced by self-advocates using the long history of self-determination research at the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities. We have these objectives:

• Conduct focus groups to understand the Supported Decision-Making arrangements that self-advocates have in place
• Develop Deciding My Future based on self-advocate experience with Supported Decision-Making and the Supported Decision Making Inventory
• Conduct two trainings to educate self-advocates and their family members/caregivers on how to use Deciding My Future to develop Supported Decision-Making plans
• Create a webpage to serve as a first stop for Kansans interested in Supported Decision-Making