Home · Legal & Financial Planning
Who will carry what
You do not need one person to replace everything you do. You need 15 jobs named, and a second name on the ones that cannot wait. Free, nothing to sign up for, and nothing you type leaves this browser.
§ 01 — Why the usual question has no answer
Almost every family arrives at this the same way: who would take care of them if something happened to me? The question defeats itself, because it is looking for one person who can be what a parent is — and there is no such person, so the search ends and the planning never starts.
What a parent actually carries is a bundle of separate jobs. Some are legal and have to be named in a document. Some are financial and have rules attached. Several exist only in one parent's head and have never been written down anywhere. None of them require the same person, and most of them can be handed over on their own.
Below, each job is named. Put someone next to it — a name, or just “my sister” — and a second name for when the first one cannot. Blank spaces are not a failure; they are the list of what to work on, which is the thing you came here for.
§ 02 — The worksheet
It updates as you type. Roles marked deadline attached are the ones where a gap has an outside consequence — a benefits renewal that lapses on a date, a trust with no surviving trustee, an emergency contact nobody can reach.
Nothing named yet
0 of 15 roles named · 0 with a backup
Start with one role. The first name written down is the only hard one.
10 roles that carry a hard consequence have nobody named
These are the jobs where a gap has an outside deadline attached — a benefits renewal, a court appointment, a trust with no trustee. Start here.
Day-to-day care · Medical coordination · Medication management · Crisis response · Care instructions keeper · Benefits maintenance · Trustee · Representative payee · Legal decision-maker · Advocate of record
5 further roles have nobody named
Nothing breaks on a date if these are blank, but they are the roles that decide whether a life is supported or merely maintained.
Everyday money · Housing decisions · Social connection · Work or day activity · Interests and recreation
Daily care and health
Day-to-day care
Deadline attachedPersonal care, routines, supervision, getting through an ordinary Tuesday.
The role most likely to be assumed rather than agreed. Ask out loud.
Medical coordination
Deadline attachedBooking and attending appointments, tracking specialists and therapies, holding the history.
Medication management
Deadline attachedKnowing what is prescribed, what it is for, who refills it and what a bad reaction looks like.
Crisis response
Deadline attachedThe first call in an emergency — hospital, behavioral crisis, a placement that breaks down at 2am.
A single unreachable contact is the same as no contact. This one needs two.
Care instructions keeper
Deadline attachedHolds the written record: routines, preferences, triggers, what calms them, what nobody thinks to ask.
Most families keep this in one parent's head. Written down, it survives.
Money and benefits
Redeterminations, reporting changes, renewals — the paperwork that keeps SSI and Medicaid from lapsing.
A missed redetermination ends coverage on a date, not after a warning.
Decides what the special needs trust pays for, under rules that make the job harder than it looks.
A trust with no surviving trustee goes to court to get one. Name a successor.
Representative payee
Deadline attachedReceives the SSI payment on their behalf and accounts for it to Social Security.
Everyday money
What this means →The ABLE account, spending money, helping them buy things without tripping the resource limit.
Legal and decision-making
Guardian or conservator where a court has appointed one — or the named supporter under supported decision-making.
At 18 the parent's automatic authority ends. Whatever is in place on that birthday is what applies.
Shows up to IEP meetings, files the appeal, argues the waiver denial. The person who does not let it drop.
Housing decisions
Where they live, who they live with, and who deals with it when that arrangement has to change.
Life and connection
Social connection
Keeps them in touch with the people who matter to them. The role that disappears first and is noticed last.
Work or day activity
Employment, day program, volunteering — and whoever keeps it going when it stops working.
Interests and recreation
The swimming, the music, the thing they light up about. Someone has to keep taking them.
What you type stays in this browser on this device. Nothing is sent to SpectrumPathways, and no account or email address is needed. Clearing the worksheet removes it permanently.
§ 03 — What to do with the filled-in list
- Ask the people. A plan the named person has never heard of is a wish. The conversation is far easier when it is about one specific job — “would you be the one who goes to the IEP meetings?” — than when it sounds like taking over a life.
- Write the care instructions down. The routines, the preferences, what a bad day looks like and what fixes it. This is the role most often held entirely in one parent's memory, and the only one that cannot be handed over verbally in an emergency.
- Make the documents match. A trustee is named in a trust, a guardian is appointed by a court, a representative payee is approved by Social Security. Take this list to whoever drafts your documents so the names in them are the names you chose here. Start with legal and financial planning.
- Check the benefits side. Several roles here exist only because of how SSI and Medicaid count money and who is allowed to hold it. See special needs trust, ABLE account and supported decision-making.
- Know what your state actually funds. Several of these roles are paid for by a waiver in one state and by the family in the next. Find the programs you qualify for or read your state's guide.
§ 04 — Questions families ask
- Who will take care of my child when I am gone?
- No single person will, and looking for one is why most families stall here. What a parent carries is a bundle of separate jobs — daily care, medical coordination, benefits paperwork, money decisions, legal authority, keeping a social life alive. Each of those can be named and given to someone, and several can go to different people. The planning question is not who replaces you; it is which job goes to whom, and who is second on each.
- What is a future support team?
- The group of people who between them cover the roles a parent currently holds. It is not a legal structure and nothing is filed anywhere. It is the list you work out first, so that the legal documents you sign later — a trust, a will, a guardianship or a supported decision-making agreement — name the right people for the right jobs instead of naming one relative for everything.
- Is a backup really necessary for every role?
- For the roles with an outside deadline attached, yes. A benefits redetermination does not wait for a family to regroup, a trust with no surviving trustee goes to court to get one, and a single unreachable emergency contact is the same as no emergency contact. For the softer roles a backup matters less, and this worksheet says which is which rather than asking you to guess.
- What if one person ends up named for almost everything?
- That is the most common result, and it is worth seeing plainly rather than discovering later. One person holding most of the plan is the arrangement that already exists; writing their name in every box has not distributed anything. It is not always wrong — sometimes there genuinely is one sibling — but it should be a decision the family made on purpose, and that person should have been asked.
- Does naming someone here make it legally binding?
- No. Nothing on this page creates any legal authority or obligation. A guardian or conservator is appointed by a court, a trustee is named in the trust document, and a representative payee is approved by Social Security. This worksheet is the step before all of that — deciding who you would name, so the documents your attorney drafts say what you actually intend.
- Do you store the names I enter?
- No. Everything you type stays in your own browser and is never sent to us. You can print the page or clear it at any time, and nothing here requires an email address or an account. These are the names of the people who care for a disabled person, so the safest place for them is a device you control.
- What should I do once the worksheet is filled in?
- Tell the people. A plan the named person has never heard of is a wish, not a plan, and the conversation is easier when it is about one specific job rather than about taking over a life. After that, take the filled list to whoever drafts your legal documents so the trustee, guardian and successor names in those documents match it.
This worksheet is planning support, not legal advice. Naming someone here creates no legal authority or obligation — guardianship is appointed by a court, a trustee is named in a trust document, and a representative payee is approved by the Social Security Administration.
