Editors' Note: Special Topic Issue on Supported Decision-Making

Abstract

This issue of Inclusion focuses on supported decision-making. Supported decision-making has received national and international attention as an approach to promote the meaningful inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in decisions about their lives. Unlike substituted models of decision-making (i.e., guardianship), supported decision-making recognizes that all people, including those with intellectual disability, have a fundamental right to be involved in making decisions about their lives as well as to have access to the supports necessary to enable this outcome. The five articles included in this special issue describe emerging efforts to define and apply supported decision-making models in research, policy, and practice, with the ultimate goal of promoting self-determination and quality of life.In the first article, Judge Kristin Booth Glen describes how Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirms the right of all people, including those with intellectual disability, to legal capacity and how supported decision-making can serve as a framework, through policy and legal efforts, to ensure that people with intellectual disability have access to the supports necessary to exercise this legal capacity. In the second article, we (Shogren and Wehmeyer) describe a three-pronged framework, based on a social-ecological model of disability, for understanding supported decision-making: decision making abilities, environmental demands for decision-making, and support needs for decision-making. We describe how this framework can be used to unify efforts to develop assessments and interventions to promote supported decision-making.In the third article, Peter Blanck and Jonathan Martinis describe the legal implications of the movement toward supported decision-making and next steps in research, advocacy, and education to actualize supported decision-making. In the fourth article, Jenny Hatch, a young woman with Down syndrome, describes her experiences with supported decision-making and the legal guardianship system, and the impact these two disparate approaches had on her life. Jenny won a landmark legal battle protecting her right to make her own life decisions using supported decision-making instead of being subjected to guardianship. In the final article, Tina Campanella, Guest Editor for this Special Issue, summarizes key issues that must be considered in implementing supported decision-making in practice.Our hope is that these five articles will expand the dialogue and promote critical next steps in research, policy, and practice we move toward supported decision-making. Fundamental to promoting the full inclusion of people with intellectual disability in society is respecting their rights, including their right to legal capacity. Providing effective systems of supports is necessary to actualize this right. Supported decision-making provides an approach to do just that, building on foundational concepts in the field, and offering the potential to further enhance the inclusion, self-determination, and quality of life of people with intellectual disability in all aspects of their lives.