Person-centred Planning

Person-centred planning (PCP) is a set of approaches designed to assist someone to plan their life and supports. It is used most often as a life planning model to enable individuals with disabilities or otherwise requiring support to increase their personal self-determination and improve their own independence.

PCP is accepted as evidence based practice in many countries throughout the world. It is most often used for life planning with people with learning and developmental disabilities, though recently it has been advocated as a method of planning personalised support with many other sections of society who find themselves disempowered by traditional methods of service delivery, including children, people with physical disabilities, people with mental health issues and older people.

Person-centred planning was adopted as government policy in the United Kingdom through the 'Valuing People' White Paper in 2001, and as part of 'Valuing People Now', the 'refresh' of this white paper in 2009. It is promoted as a key method for delivering the personalisation objectives of the UK government's 'Putting People First' programme for social care. The coalition government has continued the commitment to personalisation through 'Capable Communities and Active Citizens' (2010), and recently over 30 health and social care organisations set up a sector-wide agreement 'Think Local, Act Personal' (2011) to transform adult social care.