What is Person-Centered Planning?

According to the Administration for Community Living (ACL), person-centered planning is a process for selecting and organizing the services and supports that an older adult or person with a disability may need to live in the community.  Most importantly, it is a process that is directed by the person who receives the support. 

Person-centered planning identifies the person’s strengths, goals, medical needs, needs for home-and community-based services, and desired outcomes.  

The approach also identifies the person’s preferences in areas such as:

• recreation,
• transportation,
• friendships, 
• therapies and treatments, 
• housing, 
• vocational training and employment,
• family relationships, and
• social activities.

Unique factors such as culture and language are also addressed.

Perhaps the most powerful idea of person-centered planning is that the way a person who needs services is seen and understood by those who deliver that service generates a powerful internal consistency in the ways the person is served.

-A. Frank Johns

Person-Centered Planning in Guardianship; Part III Person-Centered Philosophy2012 A. Frank Johns, JD 1971 Florida State University, LL.M. in Elder Law​

Take a moment to reflect, on how the definition of person-centered planning applies to your work as a guardian.
Think about your own life – would you want to be told where to live, if you could work and where, or if you would be sent to a care facility during the day?