A
Story
Janet is a young woman who recently completed her
public school education. The team at her independent living agency had a
planning meeting about what to do next. Janet was proficient in maintaining a
clean home, was very good at doing dishes and her interest inventory indicated a
strong interest in school. After interviewing, testing and meetings, the team
agreed that the most suitable job for Janet would be working in the cafeteria
doing dishes at the local university. Janet started doing that job and received
high praise from her supervisor and job coach – but she isn’t really happy doing
that work. Janet has told friends that she wants to be with the students. So a
switch was made – a new job bussing and washing tables in the cafeteria would
work – she would be with students. It was still cleaning, still at the
university—it would be perfect!
Janet did a great job. The job coach
reported that Janet’s job performance was excellent. However, Janet still was
unhappy with her job. The job coach wondered what to do differently. Janet has
the skills and is very successful, but she is not happy. Why? What is the
problem?
While Janet’s team did indeed ask questions when doing her
assessment, they got caught up in the goal of employment rather than learning
about what Janet wanted to do at this point in her life. The “aha” moment
occurred when Janet’s sister discovered that her sister was interested in the
university – not for employment, but to take part in classes with other
students.
Person-centered Discovery and Assessment is
about continually learning. Asking questions and listening to what the person
says and often to what the person does not say.
What is Person-centered Assessment and
Discovery?
Assessment is the process of gathering information to learn about what is
important to and for the person. The purpose of assessment is to deepen
understanding of the person. Information may be available from a variety of
sources but the most important and reliable learning is what is gathered in
listening to and spending time with the person, his/her family and friends.
Information about eligibility and levels of support may come from formal
intelligence and adaptive behavior scales. The person and the support team
might learn from medical reports, therapy evaluations and checklists of
activities of daily living about what the person does or does not do
independently. How to use that information and its importance to the person is
gained from the person.
There are many tools to guide learning about
people, which all follow the same principles:
1. The person is the
focus;
2. Family and friends are partners;
3. Focus is on gifts and
capacities;
4. Looks to the future;
5. Built on a shared commitment
to action; and
6. Discovery is on-going.
MAPS and PATH are learning tools that use graphic facilitation to record what
is known about a person and plan for their future. Essential Lifestyle Planning is a tool that focuses on balancing what is important to the
person with what is necessary to support the person’s health, happiness and
safety. CQL’s Personal Outcome Measures® guides the discovery of people’s goals
and preferences for supports so that there is a deeper understanding about how
the person defines quality of life.
Learning about people requires
listening.
Resources
http://www.inclusive-solutions.com/pcplanning.asp
This website offers an overview of person centered
learning and planning tools as well as other resources
http://www.c-q-l.org/QIP_Assessment.aspx
CQL’s Quality in Practice Guide on Assessment offers
practical suggestions to learning about people
http://www.inclusion.com/planningtools.html
Inclusion Press provides an array of planning tools that are helpful in
learning about people