Never Mind The Quality Feel The Width: Person Centred Planning Implementation & Developmental Disability Services A polemic of unease

The recent White Paper Valuing People recommends adoption of person centred planning in developmental disability services. This paper suggests there is a difficulty in larger organisations applying such principles and leading implementation: the family of approaches now known as person-centred planning are about people, not organisations. Developmental disability service organisations often function by viewing service users as a population- some homogenous whole- collections of people with defining deficits requiring professional intervention. Whereas person centred planning is focused upon people, gifts and community.

The paper suggests existing services have failed to learn the lessons of past "innovations": without a clear understanding of why previous value and practice initiatives have failed to be effectively implemented or maintained, services are likely to poorly apply, support and maintain the paradigm-challenging themes underpinning person centred planning. It is suggested organisations may soon be found to adopt the language, but not the practice, of person centred planning.