The National Center for State Courts, with the assistance of the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging, have created Finding the Right Fit: Decision-Making Supports and Guardianship, a training designed to assist individuals in exploring ways to help someone who may need assistance in making decisions with informal supports, legal options, and/or adult guardianship.

Finding the Right Fit provides a broad overview of decision-making supports and guardianship that is not specific to state laws or rules. The goal of the training is to provide information and guidance on finding the right kind of supports for someone’s needs, including:

• Supporting someone in making their own choices about health, money, and lifestyle.
• Discovering ways to exercise independence.
• Deciding whether to become a guardian or conservator, and how to support a person’s self-determination and decision-making as a guardian or conservator.
• Preventing and addressing the risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation that is present with any of the above options.

NOTE: Consult the FAQ page for helpful instructions prior to starting this training.

Approximate time to complete the course (by section):
• About This Training: 15-20 minutes
• Supporting Decisions: 25-30 minutes
• Using Legal Options: 20-30 minutes
• Serving as a Guardian: 60-75 minutes
• Scenarios: 50-60 minutes

Please be aware that this training is not a substitute for legal advice from a licensed attorney. Content is provided solely for informational purposes. The points of view do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the National Center for State Courts or the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging.

The copyrights, if any, to the content are held by the respective copyright owners of such content. These documents should not be construed as giving permission to distribute or otherwise reproduce the content other than as properly authorized by the owner. Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

This training was produced by the National Center for State Courts with the assistance of the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging and supported by a contract awarded by Elder Justice Initiative, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this training are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Download PDFs of the slides from this training in the Files section. (You must be registered for the course to download PDFs.)