Promising Practices for Person-Centered Plans

What exactly does a “good”person-centered plan include or look like? What are some outcomes we might anticipate for the person? This resource outlines promising practices for person-centered plan documentation anddescribes indicators of truly person-centered plans for quality monitoring purposes.

Person-centered planning and perversion prevention

Every bit as relevant today, this article was written by Michael W. Smull and Susan Burke Harrison in 1993. Changing our actions as well as our words. Person-centered planning, in all of its forms, is moving from something done by a few enthusiasts to an activity that is being widely adopted and adapted. As it … Read more

Full Circle End of Journey

In the early1980s, I was working at a Regional Center in Northern California. Regional Centers provide funding for and coordinate services and supports for individuals with developmental disabilities. At that time, individuals weren’t very involved in any aspects of directing their own lives. As an advocate for person-centered practices, I started collecting and writing plain … Read more

Supporting People with Severe Reputations in the Community

While written some thirty years ago, this piece by Michael Smull and Susan Burke Harrison is a classic and deserves a read or reread. his handbook presents the tools needed to develop better community capacity to support people with severe reputations. For conceptual convenience it is divided into four components: From the forward: “This handbook … Read more

The Importance of Environment: From Toxic to Healing

by Michael Smull and Mary Lou Bourne All people respond to their environment. Whether we are happy or miserable is largely determined by what surrounds us. For happiness or even simply contentment to exist, certain things must be present and other things must be absent. What happens when we don’t have control over what is present or absent? … Read more

Foundational Writings

Michael Smull, Susan Burke Harrison, John and Connie Lyle O’Brien , Beth Mount, Marsha and Jack Pearpoint and others have written about person-centered thinking, planning, and services and supports for some time. We consider their work from the 1980s to today to be foundational and want to make sure that they’re not lost. We have … Read more

It’s My Choice!

It’s My Choice First printed in 1988, the 2017 edition of It’s My Choice (by William Allen) has been updated and is now available and still free. The content reflects 21st Century language and thinking about services and supports for individuals with developmental disabilities; and the format is designed for easier navigation and to improve usability. The concept and … Read more