Person-centered practice includes advance care planning for health care and other decisions. Recent research describes some challenges with advance care planning. For example, people change their minds, and it is hard for people to imagine into the future what their healthcare wishes may be when they do not have personal experience on which to draw. Additional research also identifies what works, and what is useful and effective practice. One key is having a trusted person who can act on the person’s behalf when they are unable to act and formalizing that relationship in a healthcare power of attorney.
This session on advance care planning and healthcare decision making will focus on four critical elements in healthcare decision making and advance care planning:
Co-facilitator Leigh Ann Kingsbury is a consultant and gerontologist who has supported people with complex healthcare and disabilities for more than thirty years. She is a Certified Person-Centered Thinking Mentor Trainer, and Board Member Emeritus of The Learning Community for Person Centered Practices. Leigh Ann is the author of AAIDD’s People Planning Ahead: A Guide to Communicating Healthcare and End of Life Wishes and a Respecting Choices Advance Care Planning Facilitator. Currently, she facilitates the Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias Task Force for the state of Ohio.
Co-facilitator Mary Beth Lepkowsky leads Helen Sanderson Associates USA, a learning and development consultancy that developed “Living Well,” a person-centered approach to supporting people to live well with a long-term condition and plan for care at the end of life. Mary Beth is a Respecting Choices Advance Care Planning Facilitator, Five Wishes Facilitator, and Mentor Trainer for Person Centered Thinking and Planning and has facilitated advance care planning workshops for families and healthcare providers in California.
Deja Barber is a 28-year-old female from Raleigh, North Carolina. Currently, Deja is obtaining a double Masters in School & Rehabilitation Counseling from NCA&T State University. She has a contract position with Disability Rights NC working on the COVID Vaccine Project and the Ability Leadership Project. Deja is a graduate of the first Peer Mentoring Training Program sponsored by the NC Council on Developmental Disabilities and is assisting with the second training program. Deja was a presenter at the 2018 Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living conference in 2018 and has been a member of the Youth Steering Committee and NC State Independent Living Council board. Deja has served on numerous community boards.
Alva Gardner is a speaker and trainer who uses her unique, lived experience as a woman with a disability to infuse her speeches, trainings, and consulting work with impactful and real-life examples. Alva runs her own company, The 4*3 Perspective and works as a Person-Centered Thinking trainer, disability inclusion activist, and consultant, supporting organizations and companies to make systemic changes that improve the work they do, and the way support all people, but especially those with disabilities.
Shawna Hall is employed at Helen Sanderson Associates USA and is a co-instructor for Planning Live: Person Centered Planning Facilitator Training. She brings her personal experience as a self-advocate and her outstanding storytelling skills to make sure the voices of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are heard. She is a certified Spiritual Director and is pursuing a graduate degree in Counseling.
Resources:
NCAPPS is an initiative from the Administration for Community Living and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to help States, Tribes, and Territories to implement person-centered practices. NCAPPS webinars are open to the public, and are geared toward human services administrators, providers, and people who use long-term services and supports. All NCAPPS webinars will be recorded and archived at https://ncapps.acl.gov.