Introducing Person Centered Thinking and Planning

For people being supported by services, it is not person centered planning that matters as much as the pervasive presence of person centered thinking. If people who use services are to have positive control over their lives, if they are to have self directed lives within their own communities then those who are around the person, especially those who do the day to day work need to have person centered thinking skills. Only a small percentage of people need to know how to write good person centered plans, but everyone involved needs to have good skills in person centered thinking, in the value based skills that underlie the planning. There are a number of reasons for this. 

Teaching and supporting the use of person centered thinking skills will mean that:

• It is more likely that plans will be used and acted on, that the lives of people who use services will improve You will have a number of ways to get plans started Updating the plans will occur “naturally”, needing less effort and time
• Every style of person centered planning is rooted in a person centered way of thinking. It is made up of a set of value- based skills that result in seeing the person differently and give us a way of acting on what is learned. Training in person centered planning is training in a way of thinking as much as it is in a way of developing a plan.
• In essential lifestyle planning we have identified 5 basic skills and with 7 tools. One way to think about them is in the skill pyramid at right
• The person centered planning tools include more then one planning style.  An organization that is commitment to a value based support system would use but not be limited to (e.g. Paths, Maps, Personal Futures and ELPs) as a way to figure out how individuals want to be supported.

• The Learning Community
• Helen Sanderson Associates
• Inclusion.com - Inclusion Press is dedicated to the dissemination of person centered planning resources