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Call the Aged Care Advocacy Line, our national team of advocates is available Monday to Friday 8am–8pm and Saturday 10am-4pm 

Self-advocacy toolkit

What you need to know for better aged care

Self-advocacy or speaking up means having the right information to get the care and support you need. Explore the topics below to start.

Home Self-advocacy toolkit Help with decision making Supported decision-making

Supported decision-making

Everyone has the right to make decisions about their life, the care and services they receive and the risks they are willing to take including people living with dementia or other cognitive conditions. Some people may want or need support in making certain types of decisions. This is called supported decision-making.

While someone may not have the capacity to understand the extent of, and manage, their assets, for example, they can still make decisions about where they want to live and who they wish to spend time with. This may change over time.

A person whose capacity to make decisions is limited should be supported to make their own choices wherever possible. They should be provided with the information to do so in a form they can understand. Supported decision-making is endorsed in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is supported in the National Decision-Making Principles recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission.

Karine on supported decision-making

In this video from the Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre, Karine describes how she provided support for decision-making from a care-partner’s perspective. Click on the ‘CC’ button to turn on captions and the ‘Youtube’ icon for full screen.

Documents and external links

Learn more about supported decision-making. These documents and websites offer help, strategies, and practical information. Brief descriptions are provided for each document or link.

Support my decision

Explore the Decision Making Toolkit to make decisions or support decisions, developed by the ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy Service, OPAN’s ACT member.

Supported decision-making suite of resources

The Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre’s project focuses on the importance of supported decision-making in the context of people living with dementia and produced a policy guideline for aged care providers, a consumer guidebook and other resources.

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