Supported Decision Making: Understanding How its Conceptual Link to Legal Capacity is Influencing the Development of Practice

This article aims to help readers to understand the conceptual link between supported decision making and legal capacity and how this is influencing the development of practice. It examines how the concept has been defined as: a process of supporting a person with decision making; a system that affords legal status; and a means of bringing a person’s will and preference to the centre of any substituted decision-making process. The conceptual link between supported decision making and legal capacity is explored by outlining three conceptualisations that are influencing the development of practice.