Supported Decision-Making Service

Supported Decision-Making Service for Persons with Disabilities | Service Model

The Human Rights Center for People with Disabilitis

Next Steps

While working on the model, an important development occurred in Israel. The Legal Capacity

and Guardianship Law underwent a reform as a result of which supported decision-making is now

legally recognized (see

. The law has left the regulation of many aspects to secondary

legislation to be enacted by March 2018. Hence, the next two years are crucial for designing the

nature of supported decision-making in Israel. Over the course of 2016-2017, Bizchut plans to

promote supported decision-making training based on the model presented above, in partnership

with additional organizations. We are pursuing short-term training for the person's confidants,

as well as long-term training for care professionals or family members wishing to become more

professional in the new role of decision-making supporter. Israeli courts are increasingly using

the supported decision-making model and the relevancy of the model proposed herein increases

by the day. It is a preliminary proposal for a model and we have no doubt that it will undergo

additional revisions and adjustments. We invite and welcome all bodies to use the model and

adjust it to their unique characteristics. We hope to soon witness an increasing number of pilots

and field initiatives aimed at turning CRPD Article 12 into a reality in Israel and abroad.

Pilot participant:

"It is very, very difficult for me to

write, so she (the supporter) would

help me write and, together with

a (sign language) translator, we

understood, we created a WhatsApp

group among the three of us… for

example, if work isn’t going well,

I want the supporter to talk to my

boss so that I can understand

what is going on there, or maybe

something else…let’s say the court,

she can help me understand what is

happening, or letters I receive that I

don’t understand and she helps me

understand them."

Pilot participant:

She wasn’t embarrassed to sit with

me in Aroma (a coffee shop).