The Supported Decision-Making Pilot Project is one part of a bigger project called Living My Life.

The Project was funded by the national Mainstream Capacity Building (MCB) Program (Community Grants Hub, on behalf of the National Disability Insurance Agency).

The Office of the Public Advocate (OPA), the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI - Resilience and Wellbeing Centre) and the SA Department of Health and Wellbeing worked together on this project.

The project was due for completion in December 2022. The project received additional time and funding due to the impacts of COVID-19 on the ability to consult with stakeholders. The project was completed in June 2024.

About the project

The OPA is exploring how we can better know and record the wishes of people who have a guardian.

We are also working on ways to help people to be in charge of their own decision making as much as possible. We want to learn more about how to support people to make their own decisions, while keeping them safe.

People who have the Public Advocate as their guardian were an important part of this Pilot Project.

The OPA guardian helped people to write down their wishes and other decision-making needs in a form called My Life My Wishes. Then, the OPA will use this form to help make decisions in future.

As part of the project, a form and user guide were developed for families, supporters and organisations to use with the people they support. The form is also available in Easy read and was developed in conjunction with the South Australian Council for Intellectual Disability (SACID).

You can access the forms here:

A report was written at the end of the project documenting how useful the My Life My Wishes document has been. It also addressed how the OPA could use supported decision-making in the future.

More information

For further information contact the Office of the Public Advocate on 1800 066 969 or opamailbox@sa.gov.au