Planning starts with documents. When making a plan for our loved ones with disabilities, documents are simply the first step. As a baseline, these documents will meet the legal requirements, but you will want to add details and be specific about the type of care you want and what the plan is. Often called personal care plans, these documents can be anywhere from 1 to 200 pages. In my personal opinion, the more detail the better.
Parents of children with disabilities often worry about how the children will take care of themselves, who will take care of them, and what their quality of life will be. Assuming that we understand the importance of having the legal documents in place, it is equally as important to make sure that your specific wishes for your child about where you want them to live and how you want them to be taken care of are known. Take the time to discuss your wishes with the important people who are named in your document who may be the executor of your Will, the trustee of your trust, or the guardian in the future for a child with disabilities. It’s not enough to have the document, you must set forth your instructions in detail so that there is no question about what you want. We encourage parents to do personal care plans that will document in writing the details of their wishes for their children with disabilities. While it is important in other areas of estate planning as well, I don’t think there is any area where it is more important to specifically set forth your wishes. I have found in my practice that people will always try to do the best thing for the individual with disabilities, but at the end of the day, they are not the parents. The parents are the ones who know what their wishes are and putting those wishes in writing in a personal care plan and having those conversations with the other family members or individuals who will be assisting is invaluable and cannot be understated.
Take the time to put your wishes in writing so that you save a lot of heartache and make sure that your child with disabilities is taken care of, not only from a document perspective but from a care perspective.
