Actions for the 48th Parliament of Australia
Uphold the rights of people with disability to make decisions about their lives.
Supported decision-making enables people with cognitive disability to participate in the decisions that affect them. A person’s need for decision-making support may be life long, episodic, or acquired during adulthood. The degree and type of support a person needs depends on their disability, as well as other factors like culture, context, and the type of decision.
The need for supported decision-making spans all life domains and occurs at home, in civil society, and across multiple service systems, institutions and jurisdictions. Decision supporters can include unpaid informal supporters, paid supporters who provide decision support as part of other day-to-day or intermittent professional support, and paid supporters with dedicated decision support roles.
The most common approach to supported decision-making is the ‘binary approach’, which sharply distinguishes between supported and substituted decision-making. Under this approach, if a person is deemed unable to make decisions, a substitute decision-maker will make the decisions for them. This excludes people with severe cognitive impairments from supported decision-making.
The ‘principled approach’ understands supported decision-making as a continuum of decision support. It includes a person being supported to make their own decisions as well decisions made for them based on a supporter’s understanding and interpretation of the person’s will and preferences. It requires decision supporters getting to know the person well, spending time with them, talking to people who know them, and working to understand what the person wants.
Problem:
There is no shared understanding of supported decision-making across Australia. This means people with cognitive disabilities who benefit from supported decision-making have inconsistent experiences across different settings.
The Disability Royal Commission Research Report, Diversity, dignity, equity and best practice: a framework for supported decision-making sets out a detailed guide for the development of a national framework for supported decision-making. This framework would protect the rights of people with cognitive disability to make decisions about their lives by setting out consistent standards for supported decision-making regardless of where they are and what decision they are making. This national framework has not been developed or implemented.
Solution:
Implement recommendations from Disability Royal Commission report Diversity, dignity, equity and best practice: a framework for supported decision-making to develop a national framework for supported decision-making to protect the human rights of people with intellectual disability.