It’s about a life, not a process

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February 15, 2017 by STAR Services

Lori Jasper, Program Services Consultant

About one of the most humbling experiences a person can have in life is to be a person-centered planning facilitator. Over the past 36 months or more, most of us have been inundated with the words and concepts around person-centeredness. Who knew that person-centeredness was even a word? In trying to move a good thing forward, it has become overdone and worn out in the eyes of some. Worn out, not in a good way. Not in the comfortable way a sweatshirt just reaches the pinnacle of softness and is stretched out just enough to really provide comfort and warmth. Worn out as in – can I please be done with this now? It some places and in some lives it has become a piece of paper or a process to be followed. Then there are those times, when it wraps itself around a person like a favorite sweatshirt, and it isn’t a process. It’s about a person’s life.

If only everyone would have the good fortune to have a guy like Marcus grace their life for a couple of hours. I met Marcus on a windy, late summer afternoon. Marcus dressed in jeans, flannel shirts, and had dirt under his fingernails. He was soften spoken and had simple dreams for his life. An apartment with a roommate – “A roommate helps with expenses”, he explained to me. Marcus thought it would be best to move by December because you know, “it’s just time, it’s just the next thing to do”. He expressed outwardly no demands, no strong desire, just that it seemed time. I left Marcus’s kitchen table wondering if he really wanted to move or if he felt some sort of pressure to tell me that he wanted to move.

A few weeks passed by and Marcus gathered his rather large planning circle. All were gathered to talk about Marcus’s future move to his apartment. Amidst all the details of what will the apartment look like, what floor will it be on, what things do you need, Marcus spoke quietly and frankly a little infrequently. He smiled occasionally and he said it all looked good to him. A casual inquiry about work had a profound effect. Marcus said he wanted to find another seasonal job to that he could do when his current position ended for the season. Immediately the talk started up again. “But you will be missed at the day program, your friends are  there, you like it there.”  It seemed as if everyone was trying to talk him out of what he wanted. He is such a quiet guy, never one to make big demands in a dramatic fashion.

Marcus’s Person-Centered Plan

As the facilitator, I reminded the planning circle that their role is to listen and to wrap around Marcus and find ways to get him where he tells us he wants to be. Yes, all of the details do require conversation, but let’s make sure that we are listening so we are planning and supporting on the right things. Let’s put aside what we might want or expect for the person. Let’s put away our routine of what happens when the seasonal job ends. Let’s listen, plan, and act. Let’s really move in that person-centered realm and not just go through the process.

A few months later, I checked back in to see how things were going. I was really proud of Marcus. He had moved into his own apartment. There were a couple of couple of minor mishaps, dignity of risk, or just plain ordinary life things that had occurred. He wasn’t rattled by them and neither was his team. He and his team were getting ready for his seasonal job to end and because they listened, they were gearing up for his next simple desire in life – a job.