VALUING PEOPLE NOW OR VALUING PEOPLE NEVER

Valuing People Now or Valuing People Never

Valuing People Now or Valuing People Never

Person Centred Planning

Person Centred Planning is an ongoing problem-solving process used to help people with disabilities plan for their future. In person centred planning, groups of people focus on an individual and that person's vision of what they would like to do in the future. This "person-centred" team meets to identify opportunities for the focus person to develop personal relationships, participate in their community, increase control over their own lives, and develop the skills and abilities needed to achieve these goals. Person Centred Planning depends on the commitment of a team of individuals who care about the focus person. These individuals take action to make sure that the strategies discussed in planning meetings are implemented (Bozarth, 1998).

Person-centred planning is a process-oriented approach to empowering people with disability labels. It focuses on the people and their needs by putting them in charge of defining the direction for their lives, not on the systems that may or may not be available to serve them. This ultimately leads to greater inclusion as valued members of both community and society.

Changing Our Actions as Well as Our Words

Person centred planning, in all of its forms, is moving from something done by a few enthusiasts to an activity that is being widely adopted and adapted. As it leaves the caring hands of the pioneers there are concerns for how it will be used. Our experience suggests that abuses generally arise from a lack of understanding on the part of those conducting the planning. The change from a program to a support model has been described as a paradigm shift. As a paradigm shift we are changing the "filters" through which we sort information. It changes the relative importance that we give to different pieces of information. What an individual cannot do is seen as less important than discovering the life-style that individual might like to live. Professionals who have learned to change their words but have not changed how they "filter" the information are not uncommon. It is easier to change the way we talk then the way we act. Most of the misuse of person centred planning results from using program model practices while using support model language (Bozarth, 1998).

Seeking and Achieving Understanding

Person centred planning is a technology. Properly applied it results in understanding the lifestyle desired by the person and how it may be achieved. Unlike many technologies, person centred planning is value-laden. While each of the person centred planning technologies has a different focus and a different process all of them are rooted in a profound respect for the individual and an expectation that the individual will be included in her or his community. All of the techniques assume that those who are facilitating the planning will spend sufficient time to discover the core values of the individual and to insure that these values are accounted for in the ...