This guide promotes the use of natural supports to assist individuals with severe disabilities. The first two sections review the development of natural supports in the workplace, including changes in perspectives on the role of persons with disabilities, utilization issues, and the definition of natural supports. A seven-step process reflecting the development of natural supports is presented that calls for identification of need, establishing the life activity areas affected, identifying the extant networks of support, examining the natural support resources available within those networks, enabling a decision to be made as to whether existing resources will resolve the need, putting a support plan into place, and evaluating the outcomes of the support activities. The next section proposes a five-step supports and outcomes design that involves: (1) developing the person's whole life goals; (2) completing an ecological inventory of supports; (3) conducting a discrepancy analysis between the person's needed and available natural support networks and resources; (4) accessing needed supports; and (5) evaluating the outcomes from the natural support. The last two sections examine the implications of using natural supports and review how natural supports are used in the United States, Italy, Denmark, and Australia. (Contains 96 references.) (CR)