Essential Lifestyle Planning

Essential Lifestyle Planning is a guided process for learning how someone wants to live and developing a plan to help make it happen.

An essential lifestyle plan is useful for anyone where it is helpful to:

• Discover what is important to a person in everyday life: and
• Identify what support the person requires and any issues of health and safety (from the perspective of the person)
• Describe what you have learned in a way that is easily understood by those who will enable the person to get what is important to them.

Books

 

The book Essential Lifestyle Planning for Everyone is availiable from the HSAPress website or by calling 0161 442 8271.

 

Click here to preview Essential Lifestyle Planning for Everyone.

 

Papers and Articles

Essential Lifestyle Planning

"our quality of life everyday is determined by the presence or absence of things that are important to us - our choices, our routines." Michael Smull

The beginning of essential lifestyle planning.

Essential lifestyle planning began in the late 1980s, at the University of Maryland, where Michael Smull and Susan Burke-Harrison were asked to help people return to their home communities from institutions and residential schools. All of the people that we were asked to help return to their communities had been labelled as "not ready" for life in the community and their records supported this impression. Escalating interventions had not been effective. For many there was a cycle of placement and failure, and current referrals for community services had resulted in a "thanks but no thanks" response.

The written description of what we learned with each individual was called an essential lifestyle plan. What we have found is that developing an essential lifestyle plan is useful for anyone where it is helpful to:

Discover what is important to a person in everyday life; and what is important for a person in order for them to stay healthy and safe.

Describe what you have learned in a way that is easily accessible to those who will help the person get what is important to them.

Throughout the 1990s the use of essential lifestyle planning was extended to other people - to individuals living at home, to those using community services, to children and to older adults.

Essential lifestyle planning is a guided process for learning how someone wants to live and developing a plan to help make it happen.

An essential lifestyle plan is useful for anyone where is it is helpful to:

• Discover what is important to a person in everyday life: and
• Identify what support the person requires and any issues of health or safety (from the perspective of the person)
• Describe what you have learned in a way that is easily understood by those who will enable the person to get what is important to them.

Essential lifestyle planning is a flexible process that can be used in combination with other person centred planning techniques.

Fundamentally, an essential lifestyle plan identifies and separates what is important to someone, from what others see as important for them. Good plans reflect both the perceptions of the person themselves and those who know are care about her or him. Developing plans that really reflect how people want to live requires the perspectives of those who know and love the person: listening to what they like and admire about the person; and their stories and good days and bad. Learning how people want to live is just the beginning, a plan provides the framework of our on-going learning.

To read the whole of this paper see the downloads box on the left.

Family Essential Lifestyle Plans

Helen Sanderson and Clive Acraman introduce the idea of Family Essential Lifestyle Plans.

Person centred planning is evolving. Over the last twenty years, practitioners have created powerful, colourful and thoughtful plans with individuals who have learning disabilities. Our belief - that person centred planning is for everyone - is gradually being put into practice, as people who have mental health issues, people who misuse drugs, and older people are beginning to see the potential of person centred planning. We also hear stories of people using person centred planning as some would use life coaching - simply as an opportunity to think about their life and plan change. A further development in person centred planning is a shift in focus from individuals to families, as we explore the contribution of Family Essential Lifestyle Plans.

To read the whole of this paper see the downloads box on the left.

Podcasts

Michael's Essential Lifestyle Plan.
Nicky and Michael talk about his future and wanting to have a paid job. Michael shows who is important in his life.

Examples and Stories

Examples of Best Practice - John's Essential Lifestyle Plan with Health Action Planning.

Anonymous Family Essential Lifestyle Plan

Martin's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Graham's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Jo's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Charlotte's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Lorraine's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Louise's Essential Lifestyle Plan

Jack's plan

See an example of a family Essential Lifestyle Plan

Create your own family Essential Lifestyle Plan using this template to print your own.

See an example of a family support plan.

Create your own family support plan using this template to print you own.