Person centered planning is the fulcrum idea behind services to people with disabilities, and yet it is often misunderstood - to the point where sometimes people refer to it as "the perversion of person centeredness" - one way to make it meaningful is to break it down into elements and break those down to see what means what and what might be done to make those parts mean more. This is a version of a presentation that was given at TASH 2013 and at Cornell University as part of their Citizen Centred Leadership webinar series.

1. Key Elements of
Person Centred Planning
“As you enter positions of trust and
power, dream a little before you think.”
Toni Morrison
Aaron Johannes, Director
aaron@spectrumsociety
#imagineacircle
#101friendsBC

2. Foundational Theory

3. Ursus Wehrli “Tidied Up Matisse”

4. TED “Ursus Wehrli: Tidying up art”

5. Key elements
• Leadership of the
person
• A foundational theory
• Dreaming
• Deep listening
• Inviting
interdependence
• Planning
implementation

6. A lot can go wrong
with Person Centred Planning
“That workshop
was so inspiring
– I completed
person centered
plans my 27
clients last
week!”

7. Leadership: “person led” –
Looking at the research
While experience of leadership is one of 5 qualities that
predict adult success;
• Only 12% of kids at IEPS take a leadership role
• Of about 1200 resource teachers not one could think of
an example of a child with special needs in a leadership
position at a club, sports team or student government
• Leadership is “perhaps the least explored and
understood aspect of self-determination among
individuals with disabilities”
Erik W. Carter, Beth Swedeen, Martha J. Walter, Colleen K. Moss and Ching-Ting Hsin.
"Perspectives of Young Adults With Disabilities on Leadership." Career Development
for Exceptional Individuals 34.57 (2011). Print.

8. But when it works…
Tiffany and pic-syms

9. But when it works…
growing mastery over planning
• At Tiffany’s third PATH
she had come to
understand the process
– She had ideas to share
– She wanted to lead the
meeting about her life
– She figured out how to
allow us to help her
while staying clear that
this belonged to her

10. But when it works… growing mastery
over planning. She wanted:
• Grow my business
• Spend more time with my
brother
• Save money to go to
Disneyland again
• Learn to plug in my own
vacuum
• Show my communication
system to friends at my gym
• Have pot luck dinners with
my family
• Try out a different church
(that my step-brother likes)

11. Marvin goes to England
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
One day holidays
3 days
Further distances
Different people
….
No progress
….
Plan for England
• See Buckingham Palace
• Meet family
• Meet the queen
• “I can balance seven
beer cans on my head
just like my cousins”
• “I hardly saw him”

12. X is blind and deaf, has an intellectual disability, and was assisted in planning
by 20+ people including former teachers, birth family, former and current
foster parents, grandparents, friends from school…

13. Where else will people discuss which of his
five favourite car washes does he like best?

14. Cheryl: the win
walked in feeling alone and vulnerable

15. A lens for person centred planning:
Supporting and building on interdependence
"Person centred planning
grew out of a passionate
concern to support people
with developmental
disabilities in discovering
and contributing their
gifts."
Connie Lyle O'Brien and
John O'Brien
"Person centred planning
grew out of a passionate
concern to support people
with developmental
disabilities in discovering
and contributing their
gifts."
Connie Lyle O'Brien and
John O'Brien

16. There is always a theory:
Our Foundational Theory

17. We broke it down with families
and self advocates…

18. While the biggest question was how do we make sure
we cover this – that’s not the best question…
We found:
• Schedules for when planning
will happen
– “It’s Person Centred
planning Day!”
• Forms to be used on the spot
(spontaneity!) that came out
in triplicate
• Unscheduled monitoring visits
• Many tracking forms
• Wonderful databases
• The people organizing the
tracking systems were not the
people at the planning events

19. From a great presentation by Keenan
Weller on slideshare

20. What was monitored was often still the
result of a needs-based approach
• One of our friends says that
at her program person
centred planning was really
about “which window do
you want to look out of?”
• She wanted a job. Their
response was, “But you
have a disability – which
window did you choose?”
• She started an employment
agency with some self
advocate friends

21. This thinking manifests in teacher
notes and staff log books

22. More than 100 notes in grade 3 binder;
not one positive comment
• When we pointed this out
to them, they were as
surprised (and horrified)
as we were
• We need to commit to
thinking differently
• We need to be suspicious
of a system that forces us
to think of deficits as
points to count towards
supports that are needed

24. Out of 20+ kids he was the only one who showed up
having written a new chapter for the script, spent all
the breaks with the camera-persons and sound crew…

25. Hoping for less of…
“Well that (12 years of education)
was just bizarre.”
Not educated in what interested her;
Not taught in the ways that she
learned best.

26. We need to rethink this mythology of
introduction as community after a half century

27. Community = social presence
community = connection

28. giftedness

29. Where do you contribute? Where would
you be missed? Where are you needed?

30. Supporting and building on interdependence.
Our gifts are how we connect.
"Person centred planning
grew out of a passionate
concern to support people
with developmental
disabilities in discovering
and contributing their
gifts."
Connie Lyle O'Brien and
John O'Brien
"Person centred planning
grew out of a passionate
concern to support people
with developmental
disabilities in discovering
and contributing their
gifts."
Connie Lyle O'Brien and
John O'Brien

31. Before a planning meeting, a staff person sent me this. This was
his experience of planning in his family. We can’t proceed
without healing everyone involved.

32. But we can rewrite the scripts…

33. CLBC Safeguards publications
• Often people are
surrounded by really
great services, that
preclude connection
• Often the people who
might connect them
don’t know how – as
individuals and as
agencies…

34. We are not alone in any of this. Graphic by Allison
Crow Flanigan of a session with Rich Litvin that has
nothing to do with disability.
• Teaching support staff
to step back
• Teaching parents to
“wait”
• Teaching agency and
school leaders about
vulnerabilities and risk
• Teaching invitation “one
person at a time”

35. Learning invitation: “Can I ask you to help me
think this through for half an hour over coffee?”
• 100% success for families
• Not “do respite for the weekend”
• “take over when I die”
• “tube feed my child without any training”

36. Learning invitation: a script

37. 3 rooms of 30
• Daughter, 35
• Mom and Dad
verging on
retirement
• Mom had created a
“circle of friends”
for her daughter as
a child
• Had a PLAN
facilitator who
developed a
network
• Had a group of
family, friends,
staff*
• Two sons and
daughter, 6 –
12
• Single mom
had no local
family
• Neighbours
• School
contacts
• Family
• Past workers
• Friends from
work
• Daughter
• Mom and step-dad
• Step - dad took the
dog for a walk…

38. www.communityworks.info
David Wetherow

39. Inviting in people to leverage our
networks: here’s why you want to know us

40. A method: PATH
Inclusion.com books and materials

41. Looking at good planners:
planning for connection
Meaghen Taylor-Reid
Regional Employment Coordinator
Community Living BC (CLBC)
Simon Fraser Region,
Port Moody Office
"I maintain we've
just gotta get out
of the way! And be
involved in
different ways - all
about
connection…. I'm
honoured to cheer."

42. Looking at good planners:
planning for independence
Shelley Nessman,
Consultant, Strategic Initiatives,
Spectrum Consulting
“We need to develop
tracks that young people
will be able to follow in
the rest of their lives to
make partnership
possible. To ask the
question they need
answered the most,
‘How do we do this
together? How will I do
it more independently
when I am on my
own?’”

43. Looking at good planners:
assuming a soft touch
Linda Perry, E.D.,
Vela Microboard Society
“If we are doing our work
well, we’ll be listening deeply
to the stories people tell us –
and those are never stories
that end when we arrive –
they are always stories about
where people might go. And
then we can enter into
conversations about what
might happen, with a soft
touch, just focusing on what
they might need from us.”

44. Planning for implementation
• ‘the plan is not the
outcome’
– Helen Sanderson, 2003
• Accountability partners
– Grandmas forget least
often and have the best
answers…
• Leadership
– Top down
– (Invite the accountants)

45. New directions – there are exciting new
developments in person centered planning…

46. Key elements
•
•
•
•
•
•
Leadership of the person
A foundational theory
Dreaming
Deep listening
Inviting interdependence
Planning implementation

47. Please contact us
www.101friends.ca
www.imagineacircle.com
aaron@spectrumsociety.org