[the21stblessing]

Q. If you attended the November 15-16, 2019 conference, what was one or more of your highlights or takeaways?

Okay, I’ll go first.
>>SUPPORTED DECISION-MAKING<<
I was reminded how powerful –and empowering– supported decision-making is,  as opposed to opting for conservatorship.  So after my daughter and I got back, one of the items on my action list was to update her special needs trust.  So later in November my husband and I met with our lawyer and instructed her to delete the wording in our family’s special need trust that opened the future possibility of allowing a conservatorship to be set up for her “if deemed necessary.”  Instead, we plan to follow the supported decision making model, which we will include in the letter of intent at this point since supported decision-making is not yet a statutory option in California (but hopefully it soon will be!).

Our daughter has already indicated who she would like on her person-centered planning team, as well as who she would like to be on her power of attorney lists for financial, medical, and educational decisions.  So we will be reaching out to that same team of mentors and friends to begin to form the core of her supported decision-making teams and build from there.

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