Conference Notes: Future Planning Seminar
Shannon Hill, Ph.D

On March 29, The Baddour Center hosted the 2008 Dr. Phil George Spring Workshop, focusing on future planning for people with special needs. The seminar was attended by more than 50 people, including Baddour Center staff and families, community members, and University of Memphis students. The speaker, Mr. Bart Stevens of Scottsdale, Arizona, is a Chartered Lifetime Assistance Planner. He has written a book, The ABC's of Special Needs Planning Made Easy, which is designed to help families to think about their loved one's needs across the lifespan. The book, and the presentation, covered more than just financial planning, but also legal issues, ethical issues, and a multitude of issues that are hard to predict but often "pop up." For instance, what would you do if a distant relative died and willed a substantial amount of money to your child with special needs? How would you protect the money? How would you protect his or her government benefits, such as Medicaid and Social Security? There are ways to do that, and Mr. Stevens filled our minds with loads of information.

In addition to being an intelligent and informative speaker, Mr. Stevens is also very engaging. Let's face it: legal and financial planning seminars have the potential to be very boring. However, he is able to highlight each of his points with stories from real experiences; real people's lives. I spoke with many of the family members who attended; all said they had learned some thing new. Most of the families who were there already had some plans in place; they've done their research; they've thought through their plans. But, in each case, Mr. Stevens mentioned something they had not yet considered.

One of the most startling things I learned was that there are very few people who specialize in special needs planning. Business schools do not focus on this need in their financial planning programs; law schools rarely include developing special needs trusts in their curricula. Do you know anyone who understands ALL of the following:

considering long term residential care options

establishing and maintaining government entitlement benefits

establishing a special needs trust that works

working through family obstacles

identifying surprises that may unravel existing financial plans

making final arrangements

passing along lifestyle and caretaking facts that need to be maintained in your absence

how to select guardians, trustees, conservators, and executors* how to calculate how much money will be needed

how to find the money to fund your plan

the best way to transfer assets after the death of relatives or concerned others

Well, I do....now. Not only can Mr. Stevens talk about everything on the list, he can also talk about the fine nuances. For example, how pa-rental divorce affects the setting up of the trust; how to project the need for changes in type of residential care over the lifespan; how a well-meaning relative can unintentionally cause your loved one to lose government benefits, and what you can do to undo the damage.

So, if you missed the workshop, you missed a lot! However, Mr. Stevens has compiled much of this information into the book mentioned earlier. You can obtain a copy of the book by visiting his website, www.BSSNP.com. It retails for approximately $35.

SAVE THE DATE!!
Our next Dr. Phil George Symposium is coming up September 19, with guest speak-er Dr. Tamar Heller of the University of Illinois - Chicago Rehabilitation and Train-ing Center on Aging with Developmental Disabilities. Watch your mail -- registration brochures will be available in June.