Welcome to Unlimited Parenting, where we discuss what it's like raising children with disabilities
or special health care needs.
I'm Allison, and with me today are my partners in crime, Melissa and Sarah, and we are going
to be talking about person-centered planning and charting the life course.
Stick around to the end to hear about our upcoming collaboration with the Idaho Council
on Developmental Disabilities, where you can learn more about person-centered thinking.
All right, so I'm going to pass off the mic to both Sarah and Melissa, and what you can
expect from this episode is a little bit about why person-centered planning is important,
what is person-centered thinking, what is person-centered training, as well as some
of our very favorite charting the life course tools that you can use when you are supporting
your new adult in their journey.
So take it away, ladies.
Thank you much.
Thank you.
Happy to be here and share.
But without podcast direction, we're going to be a little lost.
I'm just kidding.
Well, I'm still here.
Okay, don't leave the room.
All right, why don't we start with what in the heck is even that?
Person-centered planning, charting the life course.
Good question.
Yep.
Good launching point.
Go ahead.
So person-centered planning is really an emphasis or a focus on planning a life or planning,
making a plan, keeping that person that we're talking about at the center.
Usually a person with a disability, yeah, but at the center.
So very much what it sounds like, that person is at the center of a team of people that
have their best intentions for that person in mind.
And I think to not leave this person out, the person is truly at the center, we are
making sure that we are including things and planning with that person and the things that
they want to do in their own life, not what we think they want to do.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So charting the life course is essentially a framework within person-centered planning
that has some really valuable tools and processes that you and I, Sarah, have been lucky enough
to go through the ambassador program.
But charting the life course is a framework developed out of the University of Missouri,
Kansas City.
Like Sarah said, it's to put the individuals at the forefront and to develop plans and
systems of plans, it's not just one and done.
Right.
Because I mean, to have a life that requires a lot of support from multiple areas, family,
friends, paid supports, natural supports, we want to make sure that we're doing a good
job when we're helping our individuals plan their life.
And so some of the tools that came out of this life course model help families, help
the individuals, help people who are caring for and providing the services do a more inclusive
job at using all areas of life that our families and loved ones are going to be living.
I think person-centered planning for me takes some of the deficit eligibility out of the
picture and puts in, you know, what is this person's interest?
What are their goals?
What are their hobbies?
What do they want to do?
Not just what are their deficits that make them eligible for supports and services.
It's creating a more wholesome, like you said, an inclusive plan.
And it might sound pretty self-explanatory.
Once you get in the middle and you start using some of these tools, for me, at least the
light bulbs started to go off on, oh my gosh, we try to overthink so many things.
And when we're looking at these tools and that we're going to talk about more as we
go through this, but like the support star and the trajectory and what are we doing now?
Who's in our life now that can help create this beautiful plan that will hopefully be
the best support?
Yeah, I agree.
And I like using and we'll talk about the tools.
I like using the tools to kind of separate and pull out different components too, right?
Because when we are talking about planning a person's life or planning transition to
adulthood, that's kind of a big ask.
So if we take these tools and just pull out the little pieces, it helps us feel a little
bit more manageable, we have control and helps the process a little bit.
All right.
That said.
So if I was going to wrap that up in a nice little bow, you could maybe say that prison
center planning is empowering because it is going to encourage the new adult, the youth
to take an active role in their own planning, right?
It's hyper individualized.
All of the tools help them determine where they want their trajectory to go.
It encourages that constant collaboration between the youth and their parents or the
youth and voc rehab or the youth and their employment plan or whatever the case may be.
And it's very goal oriented, like you said, there's not a lot of deficits, you know, and
I love the part.
I think one of my favorite parts about this philosophy is that failure is almost encouraged.
It is, yes, in the sense that we want you to fail so that you can learn some things
so that we can come back to the table and we can say, hey, you know, that thing that
you really wanted to do, we gave it a shot.
Maybe it didn't work out so well.
So now where are we going to go from here?
So if we're talking about person centered planning, where are we going to start?
How do we how do we even get the process started now that we know the philosophy?
I mean, you have a lot of ways that you could start.
You know, there's a lot of people out there that can help provide the tools and that legwork
you choose.
Maybe you don't want to use the charting the life course.
Maybe you do.
And I think at the end of this, we're going to talk about some opportunities, like you
said, that are coming up that families can get involved in.
But what if you wanted to start now?
I mean, we could we could Google I'm determined or we can Google person centered planning
and a lot of tools and resources are going to pop up.
It's just how do you want to use those?
And does your person want you to use those?
I guess that's what we have to ensure that we are doing this for the individual and that
individual this is what they want moving forward.
And I think I think, too, that it really helps you kind of like you said earlier, Melissa,
pick out the things that are that you want to focus on and that are manageable.
There are a lot of tools on the Web site.
There's a lot of different ideas and tricks out there.
But this kind of helps you break it down to hone in or focus on one aspect of the plan.
My son is 13 going on 14.
I have been using on going on going on 21.
I was immediately like you are 16 going on 17.
I have it.
We haven't necessarily dove in headfirst to person centered planning.
But we have gotten our feet wet a little bit.
More so with the trajectory.
It's something that we have used as a family to as a launching point of what we don't want
for our son.
So I know person centered planning and like you like Alison said, failure is almost encouraged.
And that's kind of what we're we we don't want him living in an institution.
We don't want Reese to end up in a group home.
And we don't think Reese wants that either.
So we're using you know some of his the information that he can give us to use the trajectory
as a launching point.
OK this is what we don't want.
So what are we going to do in the interim to ensure that that doesn't happen?
So what are the supports that are in the moment working?
So all of this to say that we don't have to wait until our person is an adult or we don't
have to wait till our person is 17 and almost going to be an adult.
Some of these tools can really be used starting at 10, 11, 12 to just start planning the future.
But it puts that person at the forefront.
It does.
It really makes you as you're going throughout the entire process that person stays front
and center.
It's kind of the same as when I go to an IEP meeting and I take a picture of my kiddo because
he's not there.
But it's really just ensuring that the person and that person's wishes and desires are taken
into not even taken into consideration that that is the guiding force.
They're honored.
Yeah that they're honored.
Honored I like that.
So let me pop in and share some tips for what I think can help everyone be successful in
person center planning.
And a lot of this is echoing kind of what you ladies have already said.
But you know number one listen to your child.
It is really easy to come in hot and go this worked for you your whole life and you're
going to want this and we're going to do it because it's the same way we've always done
it right.
But let's take a let's take a breath and a break and to determine what their preferences
and desires are and that should drive our plan.
Yep that's driving the car.
And then you know keep that a flexible living breathing document.
Yeah.
Because life is unpredictable.
Things might need to change.
It's not set in stone once it's created.
So stay open to adjusting the plan as interests evolves.
My son's interest interests aren't the same as what they were 10 years ago and I can expect
they will be different 10 years from now.
So always keeping that in mind when we're creating a plan utilize your resources take
advantage of all of them.
I know parents the limited work of art vocational training educational opportunities any kind
of workplace training take advantage take advantage encourage our youth to develop these
skills that promote independence.
You know I know you guys are going to talk about this but you know maybe leading part
of an IEP meeting or how can we take charge of knowing who we are and sharing what our
likes and dislikes are.
But I think when we talk about person centered planning we need to consider the tools that
families and individuals can use to help them guide them through this process.
And that's where something like charting the life course can come in handy.
And there are a lot of person centered planning tools out there.
And the reason that we at Idaho parents and limited are honing in on charting the life
course is because like they said Melissa and Sarah are ambassadors for charting the life
course and we are going to talk about what we know about.
So let me ask you this.
What is charting the life course.
It's a framework like we talked about that's been developed by the University of Missouri
Kansas City Institute for Human Development.
It helped me start from I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to do this to formula helping me organize and formulate our thoughts my
thoughts in how to best support my son Truman and what he wanted in his life taking a look
at the things that he's already doing that he enjoys doing and then putting that into
a daily plan life trajectory so that as he moves throughout life his needs and wants
and desires will be.
He will be able to do those.
The supports that he that are paid to help him and those that are those people in his
life that are his natural supports his brothers his parents.
All of us play a key role in making sure that Truman lives his best life in all the ways.
And the other part that I really found interesting and going through some of these trainings
is that people don't just use these for life planning.
People use them in their work space meetings project development.
The basic fundamental philosophy of this is thinking about all of the things that are
around us that we can use in creating fabulous plans.
I when I first started using it I was like this is just an IP.
This is just like an outdoor IP or like a home and community based IP and specifically
the support star is not.
So what that did for me and the reason I like it and it was able to give me several launching
points is because it is broken down into the domains.
And so it enables you to break it apart a little bit as a family to see what supports
are you currently have what supports might exist in the community what those natural
supports are.
And then we start asking some good questions and conversation starters within all of those
domains.
I mean so the transition is a huge beast right.
And so hitting all of those domains in one tool like the support star so we are having
our daily life daily life and employment community social spirit spirituality healthy living
and safety security citizenship and advocacy.
So we're broken apart into all these different facets but it really then creates a holistic
individualized plan right.
So it's an IP on steroids.
It's an IP just out there for for the individuals every single aspect of their life.
I guess that's how I started to look at it.
It's funny because when we were talking in one of our team meetings on this training
so many people said wouldn't this be great to give to the IP team.
Wouldn't these things be great to give to the IP team me team or to the doctor or to
to our community support worker.
It is kind of like wrapping up this plan in a neat little bow that's easy for all people
to understand and read.
And what you said earlier with the children's developmental disability plan that workbook
I recently filled it out.
It was so easy to fill out after I have these two I had these tools that I've already used
these tools and I knew exactly what needed to go into that workbook because I know what
his interest with his hobbies what he is involved in within the strengths in the community.
And so it enabled me just to dump it right into his support and spending plan and it
makes sense and it's it's a cohesive about him.
It's about him but it's cohesive because this is already a tool that we are using in his
educational setting as well.
And the thing the really cool thing is you can take a tool not all tools are going to
work for every situation or every person.
I mean when my daughter was trying to figure out where to go to college and everything
I'm like let's pull out the trajectory and it became kind of a joke like oh no mom's
going to trajectory me.
But like you said it is it can be a prod at project management tool.
It can be something that you utilize in your life tool to as a tool.
So it's not just for our for our kids.
Right.
The charting the life course the life course nexus which is really the centralized entity
that helps that houses all of the tools that are created through this and all of the the
support star we keep talking about the support star and the trajectory there's worksheets
on the Web site that help explain what to put in your in these little buckets and then
examples of what other people have used in different parts of their world.
And so it is almost taking the guesswork out of it for all of us and make in helping it
helped me to think of things that I hadn't thought of because we're so used to just being
stuck in our little tight little bubbles because that's safe there and looking at all other
ways that we can pull into some of these plans and get ideas.
All right.
Well now that you're excited and you want to know when where how can I learn more.
Just know that we are going to continue this interactive conversation and in conjunction
with the Idaho Council on Developmental Disabilities.
We are thrilled to announce a three part virtual discussion.
It's going to be a series where we're going to talk about service planning focused on
strengths, family priorities and personal preferences.
You're going to find more in the description box but planning without fear using person
centered tools to reach a strength based result is going to be happening August 27th from
630 to 730.
Mountain Standard Time followed by strength based transition planning or exploring the
impact of transitions across the lifespan.
That's going to be on September 24th from 630 to 730 Mountain Time followed by the final
iteration of the series Feeling More Prepared telling your story during eligibility and beyond.
And that'll be on October 29th from 630 to 730.
Do one do them all.
All of the EIPOL ladies will be there to help you along the way.
Also facilitated by Jill Smith from the DD Council and her information and a link to
her email will be included in the description box so you can sign up and we hope to see
you there.
Yeah, we do.
We're going to do some fun.
You'll be able to use these tools and it's going to be very worthwhile.
You'll see them in action.
Yes.
Thank you so much everyone out there for listening in and know that if you are in Idaho or planning
on moving to Idaho and have questions on systems or services for children with disabilities,
please consider reaching out to us on our website at EIPOL Idaho.
That's I P U L Idaho dot org.
Or by calling us at 208-342-5884.
Be sure to tune in next time.
Until then, this has been Unlimited Parenting.
Thanks for listening.
you