Pre-Planning for your Person-Centered Planning meeting is important. There are a number of things to be looked at and decided that will help assure that things are all ready for your meeting and that you are in the driver’s seat.

Who Do I or Can I Pre-Plan With?

You can choose to pre-plan with:

Whomever you choose to do your pre-planning meeting with, they need to get to know you. An independent facilitator, especially one who has some experience, might be able to look with fresh eyes and thoughts on who might be invited that would have knowledge that could help. A trusted ally, who knows you well, may have some good ideas about what could happen in your person-centered planning meeting.

What do you need to look at in a pre-planning meeting?

What gets decided in a pre-planning meeting?

1. Where your meeting will be held
   1. There are a lot of places where your meeting can be held and there are a number of things to think through:
      1. Do you want to use flip charts?
      2. Would a dry-erase board be helpful?
      3. What kind of privacy do you need?
      4. Are you comfortable there?
      5. Will the room be big enough?
      6. Is it handicap accessible, if that is needed?
      7. Is it in a place that people can get to (think about people who are working who may need to drive across town, for example)?

   What you are looking for is a place that is comfortable for everyone. This may or may not be a room in a community mental health facility. You are looking for a room that meets your needs and that others are comfortable going to as well.

2. When will your meeting be held?
   1. This is about your life; hold your meeting when you will be at your best, if at all possible.
      1. Are you a night owl? A meeting late in the day might work well for you
      2. Are you an early bird? A 9 am meeting might work well for you
   2. Do people work or go to school?
   1. Can they take off work or miss school?
   2. Or does it need to be held later (or earlier) in the day?
   3. If people are stressed over money or grades, they may not be at their best when helping you plan

   When your person-centered planning meeting is held will affect who can come to your meeting and who can’t. When people who support you work or have other responsibilities, it can be hard to have your person-centered planning meeting between 9 and 5. It is important that you have people come to your meeting who are supportive and want what is best for you. Make sure you let people know that they are or will be an important part of your person-centered planning meeting.

3. Who do you want to invite?
   1. The ideas of allies or a circle of support is an old one, but some people who have a mental illness don’t invite others to their planning meetings. This means that the number of ideas, thoughts and positive input may be lower. Who you might invite:
      1. Friends (these can be friends who you know from a program or friends who you know from the community.
      2. Family
      3. People you work or go to school with
      4. People you work with in the area of vocational rehabilitation
      5. Your guardian
      6. People about housing
      7. Paid supports that are a part of your life
      8. Other people you may want to invite who are not included on the above list.

   When you choose who you will invite, you want to pick people who are supportive of who you are and what you want to accomplish. You don’t want people to tear apart what needs to happen. You do want people who are willing to look at whether something will or won’t work out or not. You don’t want a plan that looks perfect, but doesn’t work. You want a plan that works, that you can work with.

   Who is going to do the inviting, is important. Especially the first time, the people who are invited will need to be told what a person-centered planning meeting is about, what is supposed to happen and why the person-centered planning meeting is important to you.

   How people are asked is also important. If people need to do any research about options that could be talked about (housing or jobs or….), that needs to be included in the invite.

4. What do you or don’t you want to talk about?

   There are a lot of topics that you might want to cover or don’t want to cover. The pre-planning meeting is the place to say, “I don’t want to talk about my weight in my person-centered planning meeting. I want to discuss it outside of the meeting” or “I don’t want my mother to talk about how I never brush my teeth.” Or, if you want to cover your weight, because you want your plan to be about you becoming more healthy, and you think others might have some answers, then you might want to place them on an agenda for the person-centered planning meeting.

5. Who will lead or facilitate your person-centered planning meeting?
   1. You
   2. Your therapist or case manager (or other paid support staff?)
   3. Friend
   4. Independent facilitator
   5. A peer support specialist
   6. Other

   There are some specific things that a facilitator does that are important. A facilitator’s job is to get OTHERS to talk and share. If you want someone to be able to think and participate fully, you might want to pick someone else to lead your person-centered planning meeting.

6. Who do you want to record what happens in your meeting?
   1. You?
   2. A friend?
   3. Someone neutral?
   4. Your therapist?
   5. A peer support specialist?
   6. Someone else?

   The person who will record what happens in your meeting will be busy listening and writing things down. It can be hard to listen to what everyone else is saying and be able to give input without losing what someone is saying. Everyone who attends your person-centered planning meeting will be giving input that will need to be recorded until a decision is made. Who is writing all that stuff down, is important.

7. What materials will be needed?
   1. Dry erase board and markers?
   2. Flip Chart with colored marker? More than one flip chart?
   3. People map?
   4. Paper and pens?
   5. Water, coffee or other drinks?
   6. Blank plan?
   7. Something else?

   What materials are needed may be different from meeting to meeting. Flip charts and dry erase boards can help everyone know what was written down, and that what was said was fully understood. They can also be used when people go around the room and say what they like about you (the person the person-centered planning meeting is all about). You might want to use paper and pens for people to write things down that can be included in the final writing of your person-centered plan. Some people like to use index cards for this.