Our Approaches

Person Centred Planning

Person Centred Planning is founded on the principles of Inclusion. It is a process that is alive and active and enables the person to be central and in control of the issues that affect their life.

Person Centred Planning utilises the knowledge, efforts and skills of those people who are most important to the person, including family, neighbours, friends and committed support workers.

It is a way of focusing on a person’s gifts, skills and unique character. Traditional assessments frequently concentrate on what somebody cannot do and the support that they need to fit into appropriate service settings or services. Person Centred Planning enables meaningful participation with the support of others and raises the quality of all people’s lives, assisting in building inclusive communities.

Individual Budgets

Individual budgets means that a budget is allocated according to individual needs. The individual is then given the budget and they can choose whether they take this in cash or services – either way, the budget should be used to secure the appropriate type of support for the individual.

It’s about people being able to choose where and with whom they live. It’s about people taking a leading role in defining the things they require to take part in society. It’s about these requirements being met and services and support being seen as a means to that end, not as an end in themselves.

Independent Living discussion paper (p6) Disability Rights Commission.

Advocacy and Information

Lifecare can provide a signposting service and information service in a way that is accessible to anyone; we are very sensitive to people’s communication styles and will ensure that we give information in an appropriate style for the individual, with the correct support for each person to use the information.

We will also be able to provide people with advocates to enable choice about which type of support service is right for each person. We will provide independent information about the various ways support can be managed.

We will support people using person centred planning tools and approaches to develop their own support plans which will guide how they will spend their individual budget. We can draw upon 13 years of experience in finding flexible, creative, community based solutions to people’s needs.

Supported Decision Making

What is important is the quality of communication and support that people have. The focus shifts from the individual’s capacity to the supporter’s ability to communicate and work with a person. The quality of the relationship between an individual and the person providing assistance is hugely important. After all, it is in these relationships that people find support and protection.

“If people think of you as a person who has many possibilities, then they will create the space for you to grow. If people think of you as a person withlimits, they usually don’t give you as much space and you will grow less. All living things are like that. A plant in good earth with water and sun will bare fruit. A person in a healthy surrounding will grow fully. Who makes the decisions? Making decisions helps you grow. You can learn from good decisions and you can learn from your mistakes. Often people believe that because we are disabled that we can’t make decisions. They start making choices for us. They take our lives into their hands. Then we become vulnerable.”

(Clark, 1991, p11)

Lifecare’s values are based on the principles that everyone can communicate; that everyone has dreams and aspirations and everyone has talents and things to offer others and the wider community.

We believe that individual budgets will only be successful if people are listened to and their dreams and aspirations taken seriously.

Again, Lifecare can draw upon 13 years of experience in listening carefully to individuals and their families and friends and helping turn their aspirations to reality.