The corner-stone for living a life of self-determination is person centered planning. Creating a person centered plan involves getting all of the people central to the person with a disability’s life, their support system, and helping that person create a vision for how they want to live their life and the direction they want to follow for the next 3-5 years.
A great resource for person centered planning and more detail on what one is and how you do it can be found at Pacer’s website:
http://www.pacer.org/tatra/resources/personal.asp
Julian decided that having so many people that he cares about all in one room at the same time, it must be a party! He is totally right, this party is a celebration of his life, his dreams and goals. In October of 2009, we got together and had one great party with the outcome being Julian’s MAP (shown below).
Julian came up with a list of goals:
He wants to have a golf cart so that he can drive.
He wants to have a large soup pot of his own.
He wants to have a service dog.
He wants to have a home of his own.
He wants a job.
He wants to graduate from the Iowa Braille School.
He wants to go to prom with Randee.
Each person attending the PATH signed their names to his map showing their willingness to continue to support Julian and his life’s goals.
One of the outcomes of the person centered plan was the decision to create a microboard for Julian.
