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Introduction to Person Centered Plans for Education, Transition and Life Planning
Lisa Poff, Project CoodinatorIndiana Deaf-Blind Sevices ProjectBarbara Purvis, M.Ed.
Early Intervention and Family Leadership Consultant
Are you interested in making certain that the learners with whom you work reach their full potential? Are you concerned that your son or daughter might not find their own destiny in the world? Everyone makes plans; some are short term and some are long term. Learners with disabilities are no different. Person centered planning is a way to ensure that everyone has a life plan (short and long term) that can help make things happen.
Person centered planning is a process that helps individual learners discover their gifts, realize their destinies and find the place or places that need their gifts. This module will explain the person centered planning process and provide information on how to use it to help make a "world that works for everyone!"
The following video clip will introduce you to Beth Mount, a well-known authority on person centered planning, and some of her core beliefs.
(Mount, 2012)
Person centered planning is a process that helps individual learners discover their gifts, realize their destinies and find the place or places that need their gifts. This module will explain the person centered planning process and provide information on how to use it to help make a "world that works for everyone!"
In the past, learners with disabilities had little or no control over their lives. They lived in institutions and had no voice or choice in determining what their lives would look like. Advocates began to expose abuse and examine the quality of life of individuals with disabilities based on emerging social research. As a result, the 1960s and 1970s saw changes in public policy that led to the movement of individuals out of institutions and into their local communities (O'Brien, 1987).
For much of the time since then, developing plans for individuals with disabilities, especially those with significant challenges, has been system centered and based more on a medical model that focused on the individual’s deficiencies (Mount, 2013). Planning took place in formal settings and was dictated by professional assessments and reports.
Planning for individuals with disabilities now recognizes the importance of identifying their abilities and looking at their capacity to contribute within their own families and communities. Current practice also works to develop plans that result in quality outcomes for individials with disablities, just as was envisioned over 50 years ago.
Person centered planning (PCP) is designed to shift the focus from a deficit-based to a strengths-based approach in developing transition and life plans that enhance an individual's quality of life. It supports individuals in recognizing their strengths, interests, and dreams and allows them to have more control over their future. In addition, good person centered planning requires a team to look at how all services are used and make them more responsive to the individual (Mount, 2013). It requires thinking about services and supports that fit the person rather than how that person fits into various systems (school, vocational rehabilitation, independent living centers, etc.). PCP also is a way to pull the supports needed from formal systems and combine them with informal systems and natural supports (Person-Centered Planning: A Tool for Transition, 2004).
This module is designed to provide basic information on the person centered planning process: its underlying values, purpose and benefits.
After completing this module, you will:
- increase your knowledge of the Person Centered Planning Process and how it differs from traditional educational planning.
- understand the characteristics and underlying values of the person centered planning process.
- be able to identify and describe at least 2 PCP styles.
- understand the purpose of different maps commonly used in person centered planning and how to create them.
- understand how a team can use a PCP to gather information, create a shared vision and identify action steps to support the learner in achieving educational and life goals.
