Empowering Choices Through Supported Decision-Making Agreements

Supported decision-making agreements are not just necessary legal documents for those who need assistance in making choices. These instruments can also be adapted into the curriculum and instruction of heritage education. Empowering individuals to make informed decisions about preserving our natural and cultural heritage as well as visiting heritage sites is an integral part of core understanding in this field.

Moreover, integrating heritage with the law can also promote the extension of autonomy, empower individuals with their choices and is a mandatory tenet of heritage education that can be found in the law today. These legal agreements can also serve as a learning tool for teachers and professors to incorporate into their curriculum. A comprehensive supported decision-making agreement form is a tool that everyone can utilize for their own benefit and the benefit of others.

Heritage education can play a role in teaching everyone about the significance of making informed choices about their engagement with local, national and global heritage. This can range from the issues of weighty concern to the periodic task of deciding where to go for lunch. Though they may range in importance there is no doubt that each decision matters at some point in our lives and all people should be empowered to make those decisions.

Beyond classrooms, schools and university campuses, using supported decision-making agreements reflect the growing trend towards clarification and specificity within the law about these tools. For those with cognitive disabilities or other conditions that alter their ability to make choices and/or restrict their options, being able to specify how they would like assistance to be provided during the decision-making process is important. This can be tailored to their needs while empowering those persons and individuals around them to help support those decisions that they want to make.

There are many examples that demonstrate the intersection of heritage and legal frameworks into one whole. For example, in heritage education, it is important to understand aspects of property law, zoning laws, land use and other areas that can benefit from the use of supported decision-making instruments. Specifically with preserved land and properties as well as determining what is sustainable or legally required for listed places.

Likewise, encouraging the integration of the supported decision-making agreements into your course can be done effectively by showing people that every aspect of their lives allows them to exercise their rights whether they have a cognitive disability or not. This can also be done as part of extension programs where schools and universities reach out to the surrounding communities and encourage the undertaking of a decision-making agreement.

The net effect is ultimately a positive one. Therefore, it is important to integrate these instruments into your core curriculum and integrate education into the legal framework surrounding cognitive disabilities and aspects of the law that are critically important for their understanding of how autonomy enhances the quality of their lives.

Finding positive case studies that showcase how the decision-making agreements have changed the lives of those who need them is valuable to showing how these tools can benefit everyone associated with the field of heritage education. The value of knowing that it is possible to expand and grow through making informed decisions is what every individual should be able to accomplish.

For example, empowering individuals and children can be done through inclusive education as well where you take the framework of the supported decision-making agreements to accommodate their learning needs. This can include experts working with them to show them how to read the law or helping them understand the concepts of heritage education and how it can be integrated into their lives. The possibilities are endless.

It should be noted that there are challenges in integrating these agreements into your heritage education curriculum that may not be readily apparent. For example, some people may not see how it can be beneficial to them if they are not cognitively impaired. Others may see this as an opportunity to lambast the content of the law for their own benefit. It cannot be used as a weapon nor should it be used as an exclusionary tactic or tool.

Fortunately, there are enough resources available to help you utilize both these instruments and heritage education as part of your decision-making and instructional process, sexual education, and how to give that information accurately to your students, community, and family members.

That is the beauty of these agreements; they can be used in any aspect of your life that you believe needs improvement or enhancement. As such, educators can benefit from utilizing them in their course work to encourage the completion of the assignments and projects, even if they have not read or heard the primary source materials.

There are numerous ways that they can be used beyond the traditional settings that many people are aware of. For example, they can increase the integrity of the research project as well as your efforts to collaborate with others (i.e., editors, authors, inquiry members).

They can also be used to enhance community awareness and efforts to reach out to one another to gain a greater understanding of the things that are happening around them.