How Does Planning Work?

Remember. All regional centers use person-centered planning as a way to work on the Individual Program Plan (IPP). There are many ways to do this, but some things must be in the plan.

Person-Centered IPPs

What are they? They are plans which have written into them the choices of the planning team.

Who gets a person-centered IPP? Anyone who uses regional center services. This includes people in developmental centers.

Consumer Choice

It's about choice! Choices about where to live, how to spend each day, who to spend time with and hopes and dreams for the future. Every plan will look different since people choose to live in different ways. It's also about getting support and assistance for making choices when people aren't used to it. If someone can't make choices on their own or with support, then the regional center director can choose someone who can help.

It's about information. People who use regional center and other services paid for by the regional center need to have information that's easy to under stand so they can make choices for themselves.

THE PLANNING TEAM

People on the team must be the person who uses regional center services (and family members if someone is under 18 years old), the regional center service coordinator (social worker case manager or counselor) or someone else from the regional center The team can also include people who are asked to be there by the individual (or consumer) like family and friends.

Everyone works together as a team to make sure that each plan is a great one. Each person on the team has something to say and should be listened to by everyone else.

It's important to make sure that people have all the information they need to make choices for them selves because the choices the planning team makes are written into the Individual Program Plan. The team decides what is written into the plan together The plan is written to help people get the support and service they want and need.

Time Requirements

When does this planning take place? This kind of planning takes more than one get-together once in a while, it's more than a meeting. While the team has to meet at least once every 3 years to look at the IPP, they or some of the members of the team will need to talk more often. Here is what the law says about meeting as a team:

• Someone asks for regional center services
• They find out that they can get regional center services
• In the next 60 days, a team gets together and writes up a person-centered IPP
• Later, if someone asks for a meeting to talk about their IPP The team meets at least every 3 years and people are told of the meeting far enough ahead so they can attend

Assessment

Getting to know someone. Getting to know someone is a very important part of person-centered planning. The best way to get to know someone is to spend enough time together doing things, talking, listening and watching to figure out where someone wants to live, how they want to spend time each day, who they want to spend time with, their hopes and dreams for the future and things that get in the way of those life choices. In other words, to learn about how someone chooses to live their life.

Sometimes, it's important to find out more about things like health or problems with getting along with people. At those times, it's important to bring someone on the team like a doctor or a psychologist.

For children living at home, someone should be on the team who can help figure out what will support the family - right now. Also, to figure out what support is needed to make sure that children can stay living with families.

Preparing For A Planning Conference

Getting together. When the team gets together for planning and working on the IPP, here are some things to remember:

• be positive;
• work together as a team;
• person-centered planning is more than a meeting, make sure to talk and see each other between meetings;
• make sure people have a chance to talk about their hopes and dreams before the meeting (making a recording or a video tape is helpful);
• everyone should get to say what's on their minds; and,
• listen to what everyone has to say.

IPP Contents

Current page design by Scot Cleveland.
Initial page design by Janet M. Perry.
Page copyright North Bay Regional Center.
Page powered by NapaNet, Inc.