Too often, services for people with disabilities are "silo-ed" – agencies, organizations, and providers focus only on what they do and do not communicate or collaborate with others providing similar supports. As a result, people with disabilities can receive ineffective, redundant, or even contradictory advice and support.
This session will demonstrate ways to create and implement effective and efficient support plans and services. By coordinating the support systems people with disabilities use every day, people can improve their services and ensure that providers work together, allowing them to specialize in the areas where they perform best - so people and providers can do better work in less time, with less effort and waste of resources.
About Jonathan Martinis
Jonathan Martins is the Senior Director for Law and Policy for the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, leading it's efforts to ensure that older adults and people with disabilities have access to the services and supports they need to lead independent, inclusive lives. In 2013, Jonathan represented
Margaret “Jenny” Hatch in the “Justice for Jenny” case – the first trial to hold that a person has the right to use Supported Decision-Making to make her own life choices instead of being subjected to a permanent, plenary guardianship. Since then, Jonathan has led SDM projects in New York, Nebraska, Ohio,
California, Virginia, Vermont, Missouri, and Kansas. He has also educated and trained tens of thousands of older adults, people with disabilities, families, and professionals across the country on SDM theory and practice. Jonathan has written or co-written over 60 publications on SDM, including the first textbook and
first theory-to-practice guidebook on the subject.