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2: Person-Centered Practices

  • Page ID
    58856

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    Background

    Person-centered practices are at the core of everything in the Self Determination Program (SDP). Person-centered thinking and planning ensure the person served by the regional center is the focus of all programs and services. This person, the individual served by the regional center, is also in charge of all decision-making.

    Some people will run their SDP plan with minimal support. Others will choose trusted supporters to help them manage their Self Determination Program. Still others will depend more heavily on their circle of support for a successful SDP experience.

    Regardless of ability or interest in running their own program, the person served by the regional center, often referred to as the “participant”, “person served” or the “individual served”, is the center and main focus of the program. The SDP participant is the person in control of their goals, their staff, and their lives.

    SDP Participants are experts on their own lives and are key in making improvements, choices, and changes to their daily schedules, participation in the community, and short and long-term goals. These participants have ultimate decision power over their programs — not the participant’s family, not their circle of support, not the regional center, and not the vendored agencies that provide services. Ultimately, the decisions about a participant’s daily life – along with all supports and services they want and need– belong to the person in the program: the SDP participant.

    The PCP drives the budget and spending plan

    Use the information gathered in the person-centered plan to create an aligned budget and spending plan.

    Person-centered planning always focuses on what the person served wants and needs to live a meaningful life.

    A person-centered plan identifies a participant's goals and dreams. The PCP facilitator and participant with the circle of support then ask the question, "What needs to happen to meet this goal?" This is how we identify needed services and supports, always focused on the goals and desires of the person at the center of the plan. These identified needs do not have to reside within the PCP if the participant does not want them there, but they are needed to help the regional center know what services and supports will be needed in the budget. That is how the independent facilitator and the regional center’s SDP team begin the conversation about what services exist in the traditional system to meet the PCP identified needs.

    Once the goals are identified, the connected services and plans to work towards the goals are represented in the spending plan.

    The person-centered plan (PCP) also is a strengths-based approach, unlike the medical model of disability often used by agencies and systems to determine what types of services and supports an SDP participant qualifies to receive.

    It is important to always focus on the life and voice of the person served by the regional center when using the Self Determination Program to meet a person’s support needs. Person-centered direct supports and effective independent facilitation elevate the wants and needs of the person served above those of their circles of support. These desires and needed supports are the center of California’s Self Determination Program.


    This page titled 2: Person-Centered Practices is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by .