Lesson 10 — Designing Support With, Not For — My Health-Care Plan

Summary

The capstone: learners assemble the unit’s two artifacts — a personal health-care plan (access, self-advocacy, navigating systems) and a respectful support design — governed by the principle “nothing about us without us.” They distinguish support designed with someone from charity handed down, name how overlapping identities shape care, and meet mutual aid as support among equals.

Objectives

• Produce a personal health-care plan covering access, self-advocacy, and navigating systems. (D03.S4.11.01)
• Design respectful support for oneself and others that is created with the person. (D03.S4.11.02)

Connection

A plan is what turns good intentions into action: knowing where to go, what to say, what you are owed, and whom to support and how. And the best support is not a favor handed down from above but a plan made with the person who lives the reality — the difference between building a ramp you assume is right and asking the person who will use it where it should go. This lesson gathers both: your own plan, and a support you design with someone, not for them.

Materials

• Health-care plan template
• Support-design worksheet

Preparation

• Copy the plan template and support-design worksheet.
• Retrieval: the whole unit — types of care (L1), fairness (L2), mapping the system (L3), urgency (L4), rights (L5), self-advocacy (L6), reading claims (L7), chronic conditions (L8), disability and barriers (L9). Today it all becomes a plan.
• Prepare a fictional, generic worked example so the structure is clear before learners write their own.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The ideas to land: the unit closes by assembling its two artifacts — a personal health-care plan (access, advocacy, navigation) and a support design — under the principle “nothing about us without us”: support is made with the person, never imposed on them. Three anchors: charity and mutual aid are different — charity hands things down and keeps the giver’s power, while mutual aid meets needs as equals who share both the giving and the deciding (S-345); mutual aid and communal-work traditions are widespread human practice (S-163, S-164). And overlapping identities (culture, gender, ability, class) shape a person’s care together, not separately — intersectionality (S-334) — so a support design must ask, not assume. The value core — dignity, care, not ranking — is philosophy §12.

The ethics lens: how we support others is ethics in action. The egalitarianism lens: support as equals, not charity from above. The community lens: mutual aid is built in community, not imposed by institutions. This is a summative artifact for the unit; keep it private and optional to share, and let learners who are still building revise rather than be ranked (S-096, “not yet”). Preview: the plan hands off to Grade 12’s independent health management.

Procedure

1. Recall (8 min). Rapid pass through the unit: five types of care; three ideas of fairness; your local doors into care; the urgency ladder; your three rights; your question list; the five questions for a health claim; a day with a condition; the social model of disability. Say one line each, without notes (retrieval practice).
2. Assemble your plan (15 min). Fill the health-care plan template: my care needs (from your health-information card, kept private); my local doors (your Lesson 3 map and Lesson 4 ladder); my questions and rights (Lessons 5–7); and my next step (one real action you will take this month).
3. The principle (8 min). “Nothing about us without us”: support for a person is designed with them — ask, listen, decide together, adapt — never imposed. Name the difference between charity (a one-way gift where the giver keeps the power) and mutual aid (people meeting needs as equals, sharing both the giving and the deciding) (S-345). Mutual aid and communal work — harambee, gotong royong, mink’a, barn-raising — are ordinary human practice across cultures (S-163, S-164).
4. Design a support (15 min). On the worksheet, choose one support situation — for yourself or another person. Apply the four steps: ask what is actually needed, listen to the answer, decide together, and adapt as needs change. If the person’s situation involves more than one identity (culture, gender, ability, class), those shape the support together — ask rather than assume (S-334).
5. Peer review (7 min). Trade plans with a partner (share only what you choose). Give one “this is clear,” one “help me understand,” and one “have you considered?” (S-238). Revise your own.
6. Close (2 min). Write the one line you want to remember from this whole unit, and say it aloud.

Differentiation

• Support: Complete only the care-needs and local-doors sections, and write one “ask” step for a support you would design.
• Extension: Draft a small mutual-aid arrangement with a named need, a named group, and a shared accountability plan (who does what, how you check in), and reflect on what keeps it mutual rather than charitable.

Assessment

• Summative (portfolio): The completed health-care plan covering access, self-advocacy, and navigating systems, plus a support design made with the person — assessed for completeness and respect, not ranked (S-096).
• Self + peer: A checklist of the plan’s sections and the four support-design steps, with one revision made in response to feedback.

Home connection

Share your plan’s “next step” with someone at home and ask them to help you take it. Write down who you will ask and by when.

Resources

• On the charity-vs-mutual-aid distinction (power sits with the giver vs shared): Dean Spade, Mutual Aid (S-345).
• On mutual aid as widespread human practice: Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (S-163); communal-work traditions (S-164).
• On overlapping identities shaping experience together: Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” (S-334).
• On discussion moves for peer review: Michaels & O’Connor, Accountable Talk (S-238).
• On the “not yet” stance for mastery, not ranking: Dweck, Mindset (S-096).
• On retrieval practice for the unit review: Roediger & Karpicke (S-228); Dunlosky et al. (S-039).