Supported Decision Making in Nebraska — What Families Need to Know Without a Statute

If someone told you Nebraska has a supported decision-making law, they were wrong. If someone told you SDM is useless in Nebraska, they were also wrong. The reality sits in an uncomfortable middle ground that families need to understand before they plan around it.

Nebraska Has No SDM Statute

As of 2026, Nebraska has not enacted a comprehensive supported decision-making agreement statute. Two legislative attempts have failed:

• LB 1168 (2023–2024 session) would have created a statutory SDM framework and defined capacity as the ability to communicate decisions with support. It was indefinitely postponed on April 18, 2024.
• LB 66 (2025–2026 session) made a similar attempt. It was indefinitely postponed.

This matters because a statutory SDM framework would legally compel third parties — hospitals, banks, schools, government agencies — to recognize a supporter's role when presented with a valid agreement. Without that statute, no institution in Nebraska is legally required to honor an SDM agreement.

What SDM Can Still Do

Despite the lack of a statute, supported decision-making is recognized as a legitimate practice by Nebraska courts, DHHS, and disability advocacy organizations like Disability Rights Nebraska. The concept is straightforward: instead of transferring decision-making authority to a guardian, a supporter helps the individual gather information, weigh options, and communicate their own choices.

Nebraska county courts are required by the probate code to explore least-restrictive alternatives before granting a guardianship. An existing, functioning SDM arrangement is exactly the kind of evidence a court considers when deciding whether guardianship is necessary.

Disability Rights Nebraska offers SDM toolkits and template agreements on their website. These non-statutory agreements document the supporter relationship, the specific areas of support (medical, financial, residential, educational), and the individual's preferences.

The Practical Limitation

The gap between principle and practice shows up at the hospital front desk, the bank teller window, and the DHHS service coordinator's office. A supporter who shows up with a non-statutory SDM agreement may be politely (or not so politely) told that the institution needs a power of attorney or court order to discuss the individual's affairs with anyone other than the individual.

This is not hypothetical. It is the core reason families pair SDM agreements with legally enforceable documents.

SDM Plus POA: The Practical Approach

The most effective guardianship alternative in Nebraska combines an SDM agreement with executed powers of attorney. The SDM agreement defines the supporter relationship and the individual's preferences. The power of attorney gives the supporter legal authority within the document's scope, which is the document to present when a third party requires legal authority.

This looks like:

• Durable Financial Power of Attorney — the individual grants their supporter authority to manage bank accounts, sign contracts, and navigate government benefits. Executed at age 18 (when contract capacity begins under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2101).
• Healthcare Power of Attorney — the individual designates their supporter as the agent for medical decisions. Under Nebraska's Special Power of Attorney for Health Care Act, this can only be executed at age 19 or older (unless married or emancipated).
• HIPAA authorization — permits healthcare providers to share records with the supporter.
• FERPA consent — maintains the supporter's access to educational records after age 18.

The key requirement is that the individual must have sufficient cognitive capacity to understand they are signing these documents. If they do, these voluntary tools can address the areas they cover without court-ordered guardianship. If they do not, the court process is the appropriate path — but a limited guardianship, not a full one, should be the starting point.

How to Decide

The question is not "SDM or guardianship?" It is "does my child have the capacity to sign a power of attorney?" If yes, the SDM-plus-POA framework preserves autonomy while giving you legal authority where you need it. If no, limited guardianship preserves as many rights as possible while providing the court oversight necessary to protect someone who cannot advocate for themselves.

The Nebraska guardianship decision framework walks through this capacity assessment with structured worksheets designed for Nebraska's split-age majority system.

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