What is person centred planning?
Put simply, person centred planning is about individuals taking as much control as they can of their own futures. This sounds really obvious and straightforward, but many disabled people's experiences of planning are negative, in that their future choices are to a large degree controlled by other people around them and too often results in a lifestyle that is dominated by special services and very limited choices.
Person centred planning assumes that every person has something to offer to society, that everyone has ambitions for a better life and that there are opportunities and possibilities in our communities that can and should be taken advantage of. To support people in creating a plan for the future a whole set of 'person centred planning tools' have been developed to make it easier.
However, even without a knowledge of these special tools we can all be more person centred in our approach to planning by valuing disabled people, by finding ways of including them in any discussions about the future and by taking very seriously their ideas and wishes for a better life.
