2025 Book Edited by Dr. Fitore Hyseni, BBI Director of Research, and DEP colleagues, Explores Disability and the Future of Work

2025 Book Edited by Dr. Fitore Hyseni, BBI Director of Research, and DEP colleagues, Explores Disability and the Future of Work

Emerald Publishing Limited has announced the release of Disability and the Future of Work, a groundbreaking edited volume that examines how disability intersects with the rapidly changing world of work. Edited by DEP investigators—Fitore Hyseni, Lisa Schur, Douglas Kruse, and Peter Blanck—the book brings together leading scholars and practitioners to explore how technological, economic, and policy transformations are reshaping employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Continue Reading

Jonathan Martinis, senior director of law and policy at BBI, article Supported Decision-Making – Keeping the Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act

The estimated number of people who have been ordered into guardianship and lost their legal right to make decisions has tripled since 1995. Supported decision-making is an alternative to overbroad and undue guardianships. People can get the advice they need to make their own decisions with supported decision-making. It allows people to choose advisers who will explain options and choices in a way they can understand. Continue Reading

Peter Blanck

Dr. Blanck is University Professor at Syracuse University, which is the highest faculty rank, granted to eight prior individuals in the history of the University. He is Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University.

Blanck holds appointments at the Syracuse University Colleges of Law, and Arts and Sciences, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, School of Education, and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Prior to his appointment at Syracuse, Blanck was Kierscht Professor of Law and director of the Law, Health Policy, and Disability Center at the University of Iowa. Blanck is Honorary Professor, Centre for Disability Law & Policy, at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Blanck received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Rochester, a Juris Doctor from Stanford University, where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University.

Blanck has written articles and books on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and related laws, and received grants to study disability law and policy. Blanck is Chairman of the Global Universal Design Commission (GUDC), and former President of Raising the Floor (RtF) USA. He is a former member of the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, a former Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Washington Program, a former Fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and has been a Mary Switzer Scholar. Prior to teaching, Blanck practiced law at the Washington, DC firm Covington & Burling, and served as law clerk to the late Honorable Carl McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

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Legal Brief Participation

Jonathan Martinis interviewed on ABC “Britney Spears is free, but 1.3 million Americans still live under conservatorships”

Jonathan Martinis campaigns for an alternative to guardianships known as Supported Decision Making. According to Jonathan,  “The most important question we can ask before putting someone in guardianship is what else have you tried?” Britney Spears has put the issue of conservatorships firmly in the global spotlight. The singer was forced to go through an immense legal battle to regain control over her life. The decision to terminate the arrangement is being celebrated not just by Britney fans, but by disability rights advocates. Continue Reading

BBI’s Jonathan Martinis featured in Times, Washington Post, PBS, and BPR “How Britney Spears’ Case Could Change the Future of Conservatorship”

“Every time we shine a little bit of light, things get easier for everyone after that. Britney’s not just shining a light, she’s a huge spotlight,” says Martinis. “So maybe just maybe the conversation changes a little bit and the culture changes a little bit. And we say before guardianship, what else can we do?” “It’s a cultural failure,” says Jonathan Martinis, senior director for law and policy at Syracuse University’s Burton Blatt Institute and a leading expert on alternatives to conservatorship. Continue Reading

BBI Chairman, Peter Blanck, guest edits Journal of Disability Policy Studies special issue on Supported Decision-Making

Peter Blanck
Peter Blanck

Supported decision-making (SDM) is a paradigm in which people use friends, family, and professionals to help them address the situations and choices they encounter in everyday life. SDM is to empower individuals to make their own decisions to the maximum extent possible to increase self-determination. SDM is an alternative to restrictive guardianship or substitute decision-making regimes to which persons with cognitive and mental health disabilities historically have been relegated.

To examine emergent issues in SDM in research, law, and policy, the Journal of Disability Policy Studies is proud to present a special issue of articles guest edited by Dr. Peter Blanck, University Professor at Syracuse University and Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute (https://bbi.syr.edu/bio/peter-blanck/). The special JDPS issue examines SDM from American and comparative law, research, and policy perspectives, as recognized in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and from the perspective of the lived experience. Continue Reading

NEW Report on Virginia SDM study by the Arc of Northern Virginia and the Burton Blatt Institute

“I learned that I have a voice in my future”: Summary, findings, and recommendations of the Virginia supported decision-making pilot project.

The Arc of Northern Virginia (The Arc) and The Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University (BBI) are pleased and proud to present this report on the work, findings, and recommendations of the Virginia Supported Decision-Making Pilot Project (the Pilot Project).

This report will first provide background information and foundational research on Supported Decision-Making (SDM) as an alternative to guardianship1 and a way to increase self-determination and enhance quality of life for people with disabilities. Continue Reading

Jonathan Martinis

Jonathan Martinis serves as Knowledge Translation Director on the Disability Employment Policy Center and as Principal Investigator on the independent contract for legal services to Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities. He also serves as Site Principal Investigator for K-STEP (Kansas Self-determined Transition Employment Partnership).

Jonathan has been with BBI since 2016 and has over 20 years’ experience representing and advocating for people with disabilities. He served as lead counsel in Brinn v. Tidewater Transportation District Commission, the first case to hold that people with disabilities have a right to paratransit transportation on a next-day basis, and in Winborne v. Virginia Lottery, in which the court held that the Lottery must ensure that all private businesses selling Lottery tickets are accessible to people with disabilities. In 2013, he represented Jenny Hatch in the nationally acclaimed “Justice for Jenny” case, the first trial to hold that a person with disabilities has a right to engage in Supported Decision-Making. Since that landmark decision, Jonathan has presented to and trained thousands of individuals, families, advocates, attorneys, professionals, and service providers about the right to make choices and direct their own lives.

Jonathan is a licensed attorney. He received his J.D. from Hofstra University.


An Overview of Supported Decision in Serious Mental Illnesses

Dilip V. Jeste, Graham M. L. Eglit, Barton W. Palmer, Jonathan G. Martinis, Peter Blanck & Elyn R. Saks

Jeste, D., Eglit, G., Palmer, B., Martinis, J., Blanck, P., & Saks, E. (2018). An Overview of Supported Decision in Serious Mental Illnesses, Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 81(1), 28-40.


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Making decisions is central to the exercise of control over one’s wellbeing. Many individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) experience limitations in their decision-making capacity. These individuals have often been placed under legal guardianship and substitute decision makers have been appointed to make decisions on their behalf. More recently, supported decision making (SDM) has emerged as a possible alternative in some cases. SDM involves recruitment of trusted supports to enhance an individual’s capacity in the decision-making process, enabling him or her to retain autonomy in life decisions. This overview examines issues associated with decision-making capacity in SMI, frameworks of substitute decision making and SDM, and emerging empirical research on SDM. Method: This is an overview of the medical and legal literature on decision making capacity and supported decision making for persons with SMI. Results: Many but not all individuals with SMI exhibit decrements in decision-making capacity and skill, in part due to cognitive impairment. There are no published data on rates of substitute decision making/guardianship or SDM for SMI. Only three empirical studies have explored SDM in this population. These studies suggest that SDM is viewed as an acceptable and potentially superior alternative to substitute decision making for patients and their caretakers. Conclusions: SDM is a promising alternative to substitute decision making for persons with SMI. Further empirical research is needed to clarify candidates for SDM, decisions in need of support, selection of supporters, guidelines for the SDM process, integration of SDM with emerging technological platforms, and outcomes of SDM. Recommendations for implementation of and research on SDM for SMI are provided.

Supported Decision Making: From Justice for Jenny to Justice for All!

Peter Blanck & Jonathan Martinis .

Martinis, J. & Blanck, P.. (2019). Supported Decision-Making: From Justice for Jenny to Justice for All. Something Else Solutions Press.



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Suported Decision-Making From Justice to Jenny to Justice for AllHow would you feel if you weren’t allowed to make decisions about your life? What if someone had the power to tell you where to live, who to spend time with, and what to do? What if that person had control of your money and health care? Isn’t that hard to imagine? Yet, hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities face this situation, every day, when they in a guardianship. When a court decides that a person needs a guardian, it appoints someone to make decisions for that person, usually in all areas of life. While guardianship may be helpful to some people, when people who can make their own decisions are put in guardianship, they can lose their rights and have a worse quality of life. That’s what happened to Jenny Hatch, a young woman with Down syndrome. Before she was put in guardianship, Jenny lived in her own apartment, worked, spent time with friends, and went to a church she chose. After the court ordered her into guardianship, Jenny was put in a group home, against her will, with her cell phone and laptop taken away, cut off from her friends and not allowed to go to her job and church.In this book, Jonathan Martinis and Peter Blanck tell Jenny’s story, including how she lost her rights under guardianship and won them back when she showed the court that she uses Supported Decision-Making (SDM) to make her own decisions with help from people she trusts. They’ll also show you how you can use SDM in your life, with family members, or people you support. They’ll give you practical tips and model language to help you request, receive, and use SDM in the programs and life areas people with disabilities use every day, including Special Education, Vocational Rehabilitation, Person Centered Planning, Health Care, Money Management, and others. As you read this book, you’ll learn that SDM is for almost everyone and almost everyone can use SDM. The authors hope that people with disabilities and their families, friends, and professionals will use this book to help them develop customized SDM plans that protect their rights and empower them to make their own decisions.