Building Bridges: Advancing Supported Decision-Making in Diverse Communities
Conference Date: Saturday, Oct 25, 2025. 9am-5pm
Location: Laney College, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland 94607
Contact: sdmconference@csueastbay.edu
Conference is free for presenters and participants with registration.
Proposal Submission Form
Submission deadline: Friday, July 18, 2025 (updated deadline)
The Building Bridges: Advancing Supported Decision-Making in Diverse Communities conference aims to address SDM for professionals in California in education, healthcare, speech pathology, social work, social services, behavioral health, law, nonprofit organizations, and others who work with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs), mental health conditions and/or aging concerns.
In 2022 California granted formal recognition of Supported Decision Making (SDM) with the passage of AB 1633, the Probate Conservatorship Reform and Supported Decision-Making Act. While the harms of conservatorship gained some recognition in the 2020s, there remains a lack of awareness about SDM as an alternative to conservatorship. Providers who serve individuals with IDDs and their families are in a unique position to recognize the strengths and needs of such individuals and support their ability to exercise self-determination. This conference aims to increase knowledge and application of SDM with professionals, facilitate community dialogue, and work towards a cultural shift to implement AB 1663 to reduce the use of conservatorship.
Driven by the disability justice principle of intersectionality (Sins Invalid, 2015), which recognizes and values the multiple aspects of human diversity that coexist with disability, including but not limited to gender, age, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, language, immigration status, religion, and more, we seek panels, workshops and community conversation sessions that can increase the capacity for professionals serving diverse people with disabilities and their families to provide relevant and culturally responsive information about SDM. We highly encourage participation by individuals with lived experience with SDM, and professionals and organizations working in vulnerable communities, including rural, urban, non-English speaking, unhoused, system-involved, and Native/Tribal communities.
This conference is made possible by funding from the State Council on Developmental Disabilities (SCDD).
Proposal Submission Form
Possible topics can include (not exhaustive):
Workshop topics:
- Disability Justice and SDM
- Applying SDM in K16 Education
- Applying SDM in Speech Pathology
- Applying SDM in Social Service and Behavioral Health settings
- Applying SDM in Healthcare
- Applying SDM in Law
- Transitioning out of conservatorship
Panels or Community conversations:
- My SDM journey: Sharing stories of personal narratives
- Feminist resistance to conservatorship
- SDM in the Deaf community, and the Deafblind community
- SDM in immigrant (and undocumented) communities
- SDM in Black communities
- SDM in Latine/x/o communities
- SDM in Asian American communities
- SDM in Pacific Islander communities
- SDM in Native American communities
- SDM in the context of the current federal administration
- Balancing dignity of risk, autonomy, self-determination, and protection
- When SDM just isn’t enough: Vulnerable communities address the limits of the law
Submit a proposal for a workshop, panel or community conversation.
Proposal Submission Form
