What is a person-centred approach?

Adopting a person-centred approach to planning can help Support Coordinators to strengthen their working relationship with people with disability and is empowering for participants. Here’s how to execute this important technique in your role.

By Mary Ingerton, Managing Director at Support Coordination Academy.

There is no-one who knows you better than you.

Yet when it comes to people with disability, we often fall into the trap of believing there is a better subject matter expert about that individual than the individual themselves.

Frankly, there’s not.

This mindset leads to us making decisions for the person in question rather than with them.

That’s hardly empowering.

The participant should be at the centre of all decision-making about their own lives.

It’s why adopting a person-centred approach to people with disability is essential for Support Coordinators. It allows us to take a step back and see the bigger picture.

In this article, we explore how you can swiftly and easily adopt a person-centered approach when working with people with disability.

This mindset will not only best help the participant to achieve their goals but enhance your working relationship with the individual and their wider support network, too.

What is a person-centred approach?

A person-centred approach is a personalised planning technique that helps you to truly understand the person you are supporting as a unique individual, with their own strengths and abilities.

As a Support Coordinator, you can use a person-centred approach to facilitate a more considered outlook to planning, which helps to build a positive and trusting relationship with that person.

A holistic focus helps you to understand the whole person – accounting for their mental, social, physical and emotional wellbeing – rather than just focusing on how they are impacted by their disability.

The aim is to first understand, who is this person?

• How do they seem themselves?
• How do others see them?
• What are they passionate about?
• What are their values and beliefs?
• What makes them happy?
• What are they concerned about?
• How do they express their wants and needs?

Then, take time to understand the person’s history:

• How did they arrive at where they are now?
• What does their life look like now?
• What’s not working well?
• What are their goals, both short and long term?

Empowering the individual

A person-centred planning approach helps a Support Coordinator to empower the individual to understand what their goals mean to them, what it will look like when they have achieved their goals and to figure out how they want to get there. This includes:

• Making sure the person is truly listened to and is kept at the heart of all decision-making, including how a service is sourced, engaged, delivered and reviewed.
• Ensuring confidentiality and identifying who and what information they want to share with others, to build trust and to create a positive working relationship.

Focusing on a person’s strengths acknowledges their resilience, capacity for growth, learning and change. Enhance the person-centred approach by understanding what they are passionate about, their interests and what they want to achieve.

A Support Coordinator’s role is to facilitate a conversation, to help the person identify how to problem solve and overcome challenges. In effect this approach values the person as someone who has something to offer and increases their resilience and opportunities for positive change.

The importance of collaboration

A coordinated and collaborative approach creates a resilient network of supports for an individual.

This ensures the support network around a participant is working towards the same goals, and is collaborating to share experiences, review how supports are progressing and collectively planning for the person’s future support needs.

These are valuable connections that can help a participant to manage and overcome a crisis more easily, by offering additional support based on a shared understanding of the person’s unique situation and support needs.

You can adopt a person-centred approach to facilitate planning around a participant’s future support needs, starting with a distinct focus on their goals:

1. What are the person’s goals? What do they mean to them? What outcomes do they want to achieve?

2. What supports and services are required to enable the person to achieve these goals?

• How does the person’s disability impact on and create barriers to accessing and engaging with the support required?

3. Where and how can the person access the supports they need?

• From their informal/natural support network? Are there supports available within their community? Are they eligible for any mainstream/government services? Or is it most appropriate for the NDIS to provide the support?

4. If the NDIS is the most appropriate option, what would this support look like?

• Referring to the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits to understand what can be purchased with the allocation of individualised funding.

5. Based on the types of support required, where can you gather evidence to substantiate that the NDIS is the most appropriate option to provide the support?

• For example, if behavioural support is required, gaining a behavioural assessment and recommendations around the support required from a psychologist.

Using a one-page profile

When identifying appropriate services to provide support for a participant, a one-page profile is a useful person-centred tool to share a person’s preferences and what’s important to them.

This is a great way of giving new people crucial information to understand the participant without needing to fill in additional paperwork or to repeat their story over and again.

A one-page profile captures:

• What the person likes
• Their preferences
• What’s important to the person
• What others need to know about the person to best support them

It also ensures important information is shared, so a provider doesn’t just rely on passing on information verbally to other staff.

A helpful video by Helen Sanderson – Personalisation and One Page Profiles – illustrates the benefits of developing a one-page profile, both from the perspective of the person developing the one-page profile and for providers they may come in contact with.

Clearly, adopting a person-centred approach has many positives, and can be implemented easily and immediately.

The more a participant feels comfortable, empowered and positive about their future, the better it is for all.

Expert help at hand

From person-centred planning to navigating the NDIS, there’s a lot for Support Coordinators to learn.

To help you build your skills, Endeavour Foundation has partnered with Support Coordination Academy to offer free online professional learning sessions for Support Coordinators.

To register your interest in future webinars, sign up below.

Mary Ingerton is Managing Director at Support Coordination Academy, which provides essential training and resources for support coordinators across Australia.