Hello everyone, welcome. My name is Jocelynn Bigelow. I'm a behavior specialist and teacher on special assignment for the Clackamas ESD bringing to you today the supported decision making interview with Bren Trask. Brenn. How are you?
Doing all right this morning. Hey, everyone. So I'm a service coordinator at Clackamas County DD services, and I'm here to talk to you guys today about supported decision making.
We're so excited to have you, you are a great person to speak about this. Are you ready to get started?
Let's do it.
Alright, so Bren, first, what is supported decision making?
Right. So we say that it starts at 16. Because in school, it starts in 16, at 16, where they're gonna start talking to you and your family about it during IEP. So know that it'll come out. And you'll talk about how to make these decisions and be like, what is supported decision making. And really, it is an idea around what kind of support you need to make decisions, whether they're big or small. Sometimes you need a lot of help for big decisions, but maybe not very much help for a small decision, or a choice. And it really helps you and your family and your supports, understands what you what kind of support you want. It also helps, you know, really coordinate and bring together the people who can help you so that you have a team.
Okay, so Bren, can you give me an example of what is a big decision that someone might help me make? And what is a small decision someone might have?
Absolutely. So a big decision might be you might be a little afraid to make medical decisions. Like you go to the doctor and he says, or she says that you need to take this new medication. And you don't really understand what it means. So your parent or the person you chose to help make that decision will be there to explain it to you and or to help you just make that decision that yes, this is the correct medication to take or no it's not.
Okay, what about a small decision?
Oh small, what kind of clothes I'm going to wear today? Right? If it's kind of raining out, but I still want to wear shorts. Is that an okay decision? Maybe. Maybe it is today because I'm just staying inside. So a small decision might be the choice of clothing for the day or the perfume to put on for the day.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Alright, so having an idea that supported decision making is getting helped to make my day to day life choices. Who can help me make those decisions?
Right. So we have all of us have people who help us make decisions. Sometimes they're our parents and family. Sometimes they're just a friend that we have, that we talked to all the time, sometimes they're an advocates or your service coordinator can help you. And we also have guardians, guardians can definitely help you make those decisions. Teachers can help you make decisions. So just know that there's anyone that you feel like you trust can help you make any kind of decision. Supported decision making is you and this these people deciding what works best for you.
Excellent. So the same people that helped me make decisions as a child could also help me make decisions as an adult.
Absolutely.
Awesome. So let's talk about adults. What if I turn 18 and I need more help to make decisions.
Right? So when you turn 18, you're, you're you make, technically the idea is that you're making all the decisions for yourself. I don't know very many 18 year olds that don't find that very scary. It can be really challenging and really nerve racking because you've always had someone helping you. So now, there's all these opportunities and ways that you could get help. So a power of attorney, they help you with medical decisions.
Okay,
You don't need to go to the court. It's pretty straightforward. You just get medical decisions with a medical power of attorney. Designated rep helps you with planning for services, with a service coordinator and DD services. A rep payee, a representative payee helps you with your financials, they help you with your Social Security.
Okay.
And then there's guardianship and guardianship can encompass all of those together now. So guardianship can cover medical, your planning for your DD services and your financials. But they're also responsible for making sure that you have a house and that you're fed during the day. But they can't always tell you, it's not always about that they can just tell you when to go to bed. Their job is to help make sure that your health and safety is taken care of.
Bren I have an extra question for you is that people at school are going to start talking to me about supported decision making when I turned 16 and then things really changed my turn 18. Who can I choose to be my alternative representation or my guardian, my representative payee? Who who could be? All the same people as before?
It can be the same people before. So it can be your parents and your family, it could be your sister. There are opportunities out there that there if you don't have family, that you feel like that's who you want to work with, there are other organizations that support folks who don't have family to be those representation, and help them make those decisions.
Okay, that's really great to know. Thank you. So how, what kind of tools are available to help me make decisions and help the people helping me know what's best?
Yeah, so I know, I make checklists, I make lists all day to help me make decisions. And so if I think about it, all those tools are there. But checklists, surveys, a preference inventory, you may or may not know, but you've done that already in school. And then there's an example here. And this website actually has lots of different ideas about ways to discuss, like, what you want to do and how much support you want. And there's some of pictures and there's some of words, some that someone has to read to you. But know that like, whatever works for you and your family, is what you should use.
Wonderful, awesome, there's some great tools to help with supported decision making. So how do I get started with or how do I access supported decision making,
Right. So funny enough, you know, you've been making decisions your whole life. So now, we're gonna move into the discussion around, these are some maybe some of the bigger decisions that you do need support around. So it starts in high school, during your IEPs. You, the teacher will be talking to you in the family about what kind of supports that you might need, going forward to make decisions before you turn 18. So that maybe it's not as scary when you turn 18, that you already have people in place that you feel comfortable to work with. Your service coordinator as well will work with you on coming up with who's who's going to maybe be your rep and helping with that. And sometimes your service coordinator even goes to those IEP meetings. So they're a part of that decision making as well. And then you'll start to look at who you want to designate as a rep, and a lot of that comes before you turn 18. So that you're it's ready and it's in place before you get to the point of not knowing what's going to happen. So it's really great that it's starting to happen early so that you have some time to figure it out.
Absolutely. Well, this was great information Bren. Thank you so much for your time and support decision making. What a cool thing I can get help to make choices throughout my life.