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“Person-Centred Planning” and “Circles of Support” to improve decision-making about each student's future and to enable them to take a bigger role in making the decisions. | |||
THE SCHOOLRiverwalk is a school in Bury St Edmunds for students with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties. It has 120 pupils aged between 2½ and 19. It has been the setting for a six-month project featuring “Person-Centred Planning” and “Circles of Support”, techniques which are promoted by a charitable foundation which also provided a project leader to work with the school. THE INNOVATION: Person-Centred Planning The professionals who make decisions about the futures of special needs students can easily find themselves making decisions based on what is convenient for the existing service provision rather than beginning by thinking about what the young person might want. “Person-Centred Planning” is a device which tries to overcome this tendency. In the words of Project Leader Helen Lee, the aim is that decision-making should be “person-led rather than service-led”. It puts the young person at the centre of planning about their future during Years 9, 10 and 11, and it seeks to change the attitudes of those working with the students. Person-Centred Planning typically begins with the Transition Review meeting for Year 9, a meeting which involves parents, carers, Connexions staff, teachers, social services and health professionals. At the first meeting, attention focuses on assembling a portfolio of the young person's work during the forthcoming year. The portfolio will have three themes: • Dreams and Aspirations • Gifts – the areas in which the student has particular skills • Relationships – identifying which people are most important to the student in different ways. |
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 Project Leader Helen Lee: "Decision-making should be person-led rather than service-led.” |
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The portfolio can take many forms. It would not necessarily be an A4 binder; it might not contain words. It might be a box containing pictures, cuttings and significant objects. |
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There is always a risk that young people with special educational needs will have more decisions made for them than is strictly necessary. “Circles of Support” help 14+ students to play a bigger role in making decisions about their future by drawing on the support of those closest to them. A Circle of Support is a group of people who help the young person to engage better with the world around them. The group act as advocates and advisors. The young person decides whom to invite to be a member of the circle. It is likely to include family and friends as much as school staff. The young person also decides where and when the group should meet, choosing the circumstances which will make her or him feel most secure and relaxed. The meetings therefore do not necessarily take place in school or in school hours. They might, for example, take place in the student's home. Circle meetings take place every 4-6 weeks. The convener – initially, the Project Leader Helen Lee - arranges the meetings, chairs the discussion and ensures the decisions of the meeting are acted on. The meetings have the same themes as the Person-Centred Planning portfolios, but they also discuss life-style, what the person has done and experienced, and their personal styles of communication, for example whether they prefer gestures to speech. Helen finds it can be difficult for those closest to the student to think in terms of gifts and strengths, but this shift in the way the young person is viewed is one of the fundamental purposes of the Circle of Support. |
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The Head, Barry Ellis, attended a Suffolk County Council 14+ meeting at which the Regional Co-ordinator for the charity Circles Network described its Credo East initiative for East Anglia . Barry promptly signed up Credo East for a six-month project at his school. RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS The school needed to find a room for Helen to conduct her meetings. Circles of Support meetings sometimes need teachers and other professionals involved in the meetings to be willing and able to attend some meetings outside of school and school hours. Now the six-month project has ended, Helen's role as the convener of Circle of Support meetings has to be filled by the school's own staff. The Transition Review meetings have always taken place, albeit in a different style prior to the project, so these meetings have no implications for resources. PROJECT OUTCOMES The school has found the project invaluable for changing the attitudes and perceptions of staff in the way they engage with both the students and their students' parents and carers. The values and techniques of Person-Centred Planning and Circles of Support have infiltrated the everyday work of the school. CONTACT DETAILS Barry Ellis, Headteacher 01284 764280 |
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