Assuring people can exercise and enjoy the right to make decisions in their own lives means overcoming longstanding barriers in laws, public policies, community-based programs, and services. These barriers also occur in the daily practice of decision making that takes place in a person’s social setting, with their family members and all the community settings and services they encounter in a day.

Confronting these barriers requires action at many levels. Along with our legal research and other information resources, we have developed a set of tools to assist communities in taking on this issue themselves. Doing so means community leaders and organizations arranging for the supports for decision making that a person needs to guide decision making and to take their rightful place as a fully participating member of their communities.