One-page profile

Also called One page profile, Person-centred profile, All about me

Three headings on one sheet: what people like and admire about me, what matters to me, and how best to support me. The shortest useful document there is.

What it is

A one-page profile is exactly that: a single page about a person, under three headings. What people like and admire about me. What's important to me. How best to support me. A photograph at the top. It's written in the person's voice, with the people who know them, and it's meant to be read by anyone who's about to work with them for the first time.

It came out of person-centred planning in the 2000s, through the work of Helen Sanderson and colleagues, and has spread through schools, care homes, hospitals and supported living. Its whole virtue is its length. A twenty-page care plan doesn't get read on the way into a shift; a page does.

Who it can help

Anyone being supported by people who don't yet know them: adults in care, children starting school or moving class, people with a learning disability, autistic people, people with dementia. Some schools do one for every pupil, and some workplaces for every employee, which changes the feel of the thing from "special needs paperwork" to "how we all work".

It's not a substitute for a communication passport when a person's communication is complex; the passport goes deeper into how the person says things. The profile is the front page; the passport is the chapter behind it.

How it works

The first heading, what people like and admire, is deliberately first. It's positive, it's specific ("her laugh", "his memory for bus routes", "the way she notices when someone's sad"), and it sets the reader up to meet a person rather than a list of needs. Reading it, staff start from respect, which is presuming competence built into the paperwork.

What's important to me covers the things that make the day go right: routines, people, objects, music, food, the order things happen in, what the person wants to be called. From the person's point of view, not what's important for them.

How best to support me is the practical section, and it's where communication goes: how I communicate, how to talk to me, what to do when I'm upset, what not to do. Three or four bullet-length lines per heading is enough. The page is reviewed every few months, because people change.

Getting started

Ask three people who like the person the first question, and write down what they say, in their words. That heading alone, on the wall of a person's room, changes how visitors speak to them.

Ask the person the second question with pictures, a Talking Mat or their device, and give them time.

Draft the third heading from what already works, print it, and give it to the next new person through the door. Ask them afterwards what was missing, and add it.

Where to get help

Mencap and SCIE explain person-centred approaches for adult services. Contact supports families of disabled children with school transition paperwork. The Council for Disabled Children publishes guidance on person-centred practice in education. Templates are free and widely available; the format isn't owned by anyone.