HDI’s Supported Decision-Making program just got a little bit of extra support.
The Saul Schottenstein Foundation B has generously gifted $2,500 to HDI. The money will be used to help promote Supported Decision-Making in Kentucky.
“It was a total pleasant surprise,” said Laura Butler, Project Director of My Choice Kentucky. “We were not expecting it, so it was a really nice gift.”
The Schottenstein Foundation exists to help supports projects that build community and inclusion. It was named for Saul Schottenstein, who contributed greatly to his community and was frequently known as “Uncle Saul” to those in his life.
“It’s sort of a family foundation,” said Jason Harris, who spoke on the foundation’s behalf. He added that disability inclusion is a very frequent focus for the foundation’s efforts.
And a focus on Supported Decision-Making plays heavily into that focus. Harris said that fostering as much independence as possible is an important goal of advocacy efforts, and Supported Decision-Making is a big part of that.
“We all need support in some sense making decisions and building up people feeling confident that they can make decisions and that they can trust people and have a network of support,” he said. “Asking for advice doesn’t mean you’re not competent or somebody needs to make a decision for you…I think it’s important because I think there’s still a lot of things around disability that assume lack of capacity.”
The money will help HDI spread the message about Supported Decision-Making. That includes helping inform people on what it is and how it works, demonstrating how it can help, and sharing stories on the people for whom it has been life-changing.
“We’ve had this project in different forms for about seven years and it’s still a struggle to get the message out,” Butler said. “We’ll definitely be using it to provide some materials and things to spread the information about that. We’ll also be using some of the funds to do some videos or other kinds of stories with people who use Supported Decision-Making.”
Learn more about HDI’s Supported Decision-Making project at mychoiceky.org.