The Impact of Person Centered Planning on the Content and Organization of Individual Supports

Person Centered Planning (PCP) is an approach to designing support that is guided by the individual with disabilities (or his/her advocates) that receives support, builds from personal strengths and vision, and results in practical action plans. While PCP procedures have been advocated strongly and adopted widely, there is little empirical documentation of the impact of the approach on the quality of resulting plans or the perceived impact of support on the lives of people with disabilities. The present study provides an analysis of the impact that the use of PCP had with ten transition-age students receiving special education services. Interviews with eight educators and ten students/parents indicated that PCP training was associated with (a) increased use of PCP procedures, (b) increased number of written goals supported outside the school-time, (c) increased number of non-paid individuals scheduled to provide support, and (d) higher satisfaction with the planning process by educators and students/parents.