Piloting Personhood: Reflections from the First Year of a Supported Decision-Making Project

The amazing Symposium on Personhood and Civic Engagement by People with Disabilities included a variety of perspectives: legal, cultural, historical, philosophical, and educational, including a panel on "Legal Barriers to Personhood" from which this article was derived. Despite legal analysis, theory, and even description, there was little "in the weeds" discussion of how personhood can actually be protected and preserved for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD).1 Locating personhood within the human right of legal capacity, and positing guardianship in diametric opposition, this Article attempts to describe some of the lessons I have learned in the first year of an ongoing experiment in implementing legal capacity through supported decision-making (SDM). Demonstrating the success of this pilot project, the first in New York and the most extensive in the United States, is critical to influencing advocacy and legislative reform to promote and protect personhood. But first, some background.