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What does a good Support Team look like?
While support teams can vary from one person to the next, it’s important that a support team reflects the personal support needs of the person with a disability.
A good circle of support or team of supportive decision makers can be anyone who has the willingness and time to commit to meet with you consistently, and will care about you or care for you. We recommend supporters volunteer their time rather than being compensated for their time. *It can cause a conflict of interest for a paid professional to serve on a legally recognized team of supported decision makers and is ill advised. In fact, The Colby Act specifies team members who sign a team agreement do so voluntarily. While paid professionals are encouraged to participate in support roles in a less formal way (meaning paid professionals should not sign a legal SDM team agreement) it’s important to keep support options open for the person with a disability as the team evolves throughout a lifespan.
Invite those people to be on your team and name your team. Gather all of your supporters together and explain your plan for a good future, and ask them to join you in building that plan.
You can decide how often you will meet with your team, what you will discuss with your team when you meet and ways to measure progress toward those goals of building a plan for the future.
Be sure the team members understand your expectations before they agree to supporting you this way. The way you build your team and how your team functions is a vital step toward planning for your future.
Are you a person with a disability?
Do you care for a person with a disability?
Planning for the future is important and it’s not as hard or as expensive as you may think! You can help build a guide for the future if you are relative, friend or direct support professional of a person with an intellectual or developmental disability (I/DD).
If you are a person with a disability it is a good idea to help others understand more about the ways you can live well and create more independence.
Many people believe making a good plan means having or spending a lot of money, but THAT IS NOT TRUE! When circumstances change, or situations in life beyond our control create a need for more support, it is necessary to have a good plan in place to avoid a crisis.
What does a good plan look like?
It should be focused on the person who is asking for support with input from family and friends or other people who play an important role in their life. For someone with an intellectual or developmental disability, intentionally engaging with people in the community (beyond just family) will help form social capital and develop reciprocal roles for mutual benefit f the community.
A strong plan for the future should cover each age/stage throughout the remainder of the lifespan and it should include all areas of life that require supports.
What does that mean?
Focus on the actions:
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Think
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Communicate
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Share
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Identify
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Create
Think about living a good life and what that means to you. Write out the things you want to do, name the people who mean the most to you, describe where you want to live and who you want to live with, label the kind of activities that are most important to you and visualize what living well would look like.
Communicate Show and tell other people you trust what living well means to you. Talk about it with people who are close to you, know you and will listen.
Share your ideas. Take what you’ve written down about living well and what that means to you and ask others to read it. Discuss what else they think you could do to continue to live well. Ask others to give you more ideas to live well.
Identify tools, resources, services, community members, professionals, friends & family, and strategies to help you make a plan for the future.
Create a team of supporters. Who can you connect with that has a special skill set, specific knowledge, or access to the kind of information you need which will be valuable to you as you plan for your future? Make a list of those people. Invite them to meet with you and discuss your ideas, tell them you want to learn from them and get their advice, ask them to join your support team and explain your request.
What is Future Planning?
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