What Happens When You Pay for Your Own Services?

By John O’Brien In most places, the government still pays people who give services. Services like a place to live, help with finding a job, support in keeping a place of your own. In some places, things are starting to change! The government is starting to give money to people with developmental disabilities to pay for their own … Read more

Person-centered planning and perversion prevention

Every bit as relevant today, this article was written by Michael W. Smull and Susan Burke Harrison in 1993. Changing our actions as well as our words. Person-centered planning, in all of its forms, is moving from something done by a few enthusiasts to an activity that is being widely adopted and adapted. As it … Read more

The Importance of Environment: From Toxic to Healing

by Michael Smull and Mary Lou Bourne All people respond to their environment. Whether we are happy or miserable is largely determined by what surrounds us. For happiness or even simply contentment to exist, certain things must be present and other things must be absent. What happens when we don’t have control over what is present or absent? … Read more

Belonging: Deepening Connections in Relationships and Community

In the Belonging: Deepening Connections in Relationships and Community training, participants will consider why relationships and valued community participation matter for everyone – including people with disabilities. Participants will leave with a workbook of discovery tools that will sharpen their skills in building community connects. The workshop will be held in Shingle Springs on February 21 … Read more

Thinking About Risks

by Michael Smull July 2013 Managing any risk begins with learning what is “important to” the person as well as what is “important for”, and helping to find a good balance between them. Often risk is significantly diminished when our understanding of what the person wants deepens and we find reasonably safe ways for the … Read more

Revisiting Choice

Another deep dive into the archives, but still very relevant. Part 1 by Michael W. Smull AAMR’s News and NotesChoice is the most powerful word and the most abused word in the current lexicon of the disabilities services system. For some people choice means that how they want to live has been discovered and carefully … Read more

Risks and Opportunities

Excerpted from Patterns ofSupported Living: A Resource Catalogue Developed for: California Department of Developmental Services 1600 9th Street Sacramento, CA 95814 D.D.S. Contract No. Hd290099by: Allen, Shea & Associates Napa, CA 94559 and Claudia Bolton 6/93 This is another article from way back in the ASA archives that is amazingly current! Introduction There are many dimensions which shape … Read more

The Principles of Supported Living

  by Jay Kleinexcerpted from Not Just Another “Rung” on the Continuum, TASH Newsletter, 1994. Individualization Webster’s dictionary defines “individual” as a particular being or thing as distinguished from a class, species or collection, as single human being as contrasted with a social group or institution, as a single organism, as distinguished from a group, … Read more