Person-centred planning

Also called PCP, Person-centred approaches, Person-centred thinking, PATH, MAP, Essential lifestyle planning

Planning that starts from what the person wants their life to be, with their communication method in the room, rather than from what the service has to offer.

What it is

Person-centred planning is a family of approaches, developed from the 1980s onwards in the learning disability movement, for planning a person's support around their own wishes, relationships and hopes rather than around the service's menu. Named tools include PATH, MAPs, essential lifestyle planning and the one-page profile. In England it was made government policy for people with a learning disability in the 2001 white paper Valuing People and it underpins the Care Act's expectation that care planning is led by the person.

It is not a form. A person-centred plan produced by a professional on their own in an office is a contradiction in terms.

Who it can help

Anyone whose life is shaped by services: people with a learning disability, autistic people, people with dementia, disabled young people at transition, people in supported living or residential care. It was built for people who were not being asked, and its whole point is that communication difference is no reason to leave the person out.

It is not right when it is done to tick a box, when the people with power over the outcome are not in the room, or when the plan is written and then filed. And it cannot make a service exist that does not; it makes the ask clear and the gap visible.

How it works

A facilitator brings together the person and the people who matter to them, family, friends, key workers, and works through a set of questions in the person's mode: what is important to the person, what is important for them, what is working and not working, what they want in the future, and what needs to happen. Graphic facilitation, drawing the plan on a large sheet, is common because pictures are accessible to more people than minutes.

The person's communication method sits in the middle of the process. For someone who uses AAC that means their device is in use and there is time to use it; for someone with a profound learning disability it means the people who read them best are in the room and their observations are treated as the person's contribution. The output is a plan with named actions and a date to review, and the test of it is whether the person's own words and choices are visible on the page.

Getting started

Start with a one-page profile: what people like and admire about the person, what is important to them, and how best to support them. Write it with the person over a week, using their board, photographs and what you notice. It takes an hour to make and it changes how new people meet them.

Before any planning meeting, prepare the person's contribution in their own mode. A Talking Mat on what is working and not working, cards for their choices, or a set of phrases loaded into their device. Ask the facilitator to build in wait time and to check back with the person before each action is agreed. Ask for the plan on a wall, not in a file.

Where to get help

SCIE has guidance on person-centred practice in care. BILD trains facilitators. Mencap explains person-centred planning to families. Council for Disabled Children covers person-centred transition planning for young people. Talking Mats is the tool most often used to bring the person's own views into the plan. See also supported decision-making and communication needs in the care plan.