Supported Decision-Making in Practice: A two-day Masterclass with Cher Nicholson

The Masterclass is now fully booked. If you wish to be added to the waiting list for a place please email autonomy@essex.ac.uk

The Essex Autonomy Project and Empowerment Matters are delighted to be hosting supported decision-making expert Cher Nicholson for an intensive two-day course on how to practically support individuals to make decisions.

Article 12 of the UNCRPD provides that disabled people are entitled to legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all areas of life. Support for decision-making is a key requirement of the CRPD and there has been much discussion both regionally and internationally on what form this support should take.

Cher is a leading advocate for disability rights and has pioneered supported decision-making in South Australia through the Supported Decision Making Project. This two-year programme considered new ways of supporting people to make decisions and looked at the practical needs that arise from providing support. Cher’s work is deeply ‘people centred’ and she emphasises that providing support is not a static, theoretical exercise, but an evolving and dynamic process rooted in an individual’s needs and circumstances.

This Masterclass is limited to just 25 people and will involve discussion, practical group work and input from a peer consultant panel. We welcome participants from social work, law, medicine, psychiatry, as well as advocacy, peer support and academic researchers – in fact anyone who would like to learn more about support for decision-making.

Programme

Day One

Morning:

• Introduction to Cher’s work
• Human Rights
• Exercise of Rights for persons with disabilities
• Practical model of supported decision-making

Afternoon:

• What is a purposeful conversation?
• What skills do you need to gain true expressed wish, will and preference?
• How to stay in the present and look for opportunities for finding people’s wishes
• Peer consultant panel – practical application of purposeful conversation.

 Day Two

 Morning:

• The importance of reflecting feelings and finding meaning in discussions
• Gentle confrontation and not being ‘caught in the story’
• Practical application to identify skills and find meaning

Afternoon:

• Peer consultant panel – identifying hopes and wishes
• Debrief