Suzanne Bennett Francisco
Exceptional Rights Advocacy
Disability Rights Advocate
San Jose, CA
President and CEO of Exceptional Rights Advocacy, Suzanne Bennett Francisco is a disability rights and special education advocate as well as the proud single mother of three young adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are non-speaking and use Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC). With a background in business and lay advocacy, she has had the privilege to work in collaboration with key disability rights stakeholders nationally, statewide and at the local level. A speaker and subject matter expert on Supported Decision-Making (SDM), Suzanne educates self-advocates, parents and professionals on less restrictive options to support adults with disabilities and slow the automatic flow into the most restrictive option called conservatorship. She authored
Supported Decision-Making Teams: Setting the Wheels in Motion (SDM-SWIM) in conjunction with Jonathan Martinis, Director of Law and Policy at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, and legal counsel in several ground breaking cases on SDM. Suzanne has worked directly with the ACLU, the Arc of California and Disability Voices United on several SDM projects, helping to create focus group findings and the SDM Handbook,
With Support and Without the Court. She is the Co-Chair for the TASH Human Rights Committee and serves on both the Guardianship Federal Action Coalition and her local Self Determination Advisory Committee. Importantly, Suzanne is honored to advocate for and support Ms. Marie Bergum, a California conservatee, in her quest to restore her rights. Marie’s story is featured in an investigative series on guardianship:
Buzzfeed: “My Human Rights are Being Violated”: Fighting A Family Conservatorship. Suzanne and
Marie submitted testimony in the September 2021 Senate Hearing on “Toxic Conservatorship”.