The Office of the Public Advocate and the Office for Ageing Well have created the ‘Substitute Decision-Maker Toolkit Project’ together.
About the project
A person with decision-making capacity can make an Advance Care Directive (ACD), which records their wishes, preferences, and instructions. They can write down what they want for their future health care, living arrangements and personal matters.
They can also appoint a substitute decision-maker (SDM), who can make a decision for them, if they are unable to make a particular decision for themselves. Sometimes a person loses decision-making capacity because of an injury or illness.
An SDM should make decisions that reflect the preferences, values and beliefs of the person who made the ACD.
The aim of this project is to give SDMs helpful tools and resources.
We have created clear, consistent, and easy to understand information about ACDs and the important role of substitute decision-making. This will also help people to feel confident that, when they appoint an SDM, the SDM will be able to uphold their wishes.
Project status
From late 2021 to May 2022, OPA met with many service providers, community members, and others who are interested in ACDs.
We asked those who had been SDMs about their experiences.
We also asked everyone for their ideas and views about what information they needed and what type of resources they thought would be helpful.
From May 2022 to July 2023, OPA took the feedback and started to create resources for SDMs.
We created a guide called “Now you are a substitute decision-maker”, a fact sheet for SDMs to refer to, and a series of short videos explaining Advance Care Directives and the substitute decision-making role.
These resources were finished in September 2023, and the toolkit was launched during Plan Ahead Week – September 11-17 2023.
The toolkit is available to everyone, and we are also running workshops to provide more information to South Australians.
For more information on the project, please see our information flyer below.
SDM Toolkit Project flyer (PDF, 167.6 KB)
More information
You can also contact shona.tostevin@sa.gov.au for more information.
We will update the OPA website as the project develops.