Involving your child in their care and reviews

Involving your child as much as possible ensures that they have some say in their care and support, wherever possible. This is known as ‘person-centred planning’.   

Person-centred planning (PCP) is a way of helping someone to plan their own life and support, focusing on what is important to them.   

Further reading for education settings around person centred approaches ia available on the Inclusion toolkit (section 1.9) 

Person-centred planning aims to:  

• put more emphasis on what your child wants and what is important to them  

• put both the parent and child at the centre of the support planning process 

• take a ‘tell us once’ approach to families sharing information 

• have professionals listen and respond to the importance of your child’s views, hopes and aspirations 

• focus on the goals that families and their children have set for the future  

When to use person-centred planning approaches 

Education, health and social care professionals must work together to discuss and agree an approach so that they can work with you and your child giving you better control over how your child can achieve their goals.  

Here is a video that explains more about what person-centred planning is. 

Person-centred planning approaches could be used during the following meetings so that your child is involved in the planning of their future: 

• SEN support meetings where your child has a review of interventions at school   

• education health and care needs assessment (EHCna) where the outcomes for your child are discussed to go into the plan   

• an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) annual review where once a year the progress of your child and their needs are reviewed against the EHCP    

• social care assessments, where a social worker will assess your child and review and monitor how they are doing is the support package in place working      

• team around the child known as TAC meetings, or team around the family meetings known as TAF meetings, where multi agencies working with you and your family will work on targeted support 

One-page profiles 

A one-page profile is used in person-centred planning, it is a summary of what’s important to and for your child and can show how they want to be supported.  

A one-page profile captures all the important information about a person on a single sheet of paper. It could have simple headings such as.  

• what people like about me 

• what I think is important 

• how best to help me 

• my goals and wishes for the future  

One-page profiles should only contain positive information. Your child should be involved in the development of their profile so that they can help those around them to know how best to support them. Usually, the school or a professional who is working with your child would produce this with your child. However, this may be useful to use or develop yourself with your child if for example, they have clubs that they belong to. 

The council’s young people participation team along with children from Culverhill school have produced one-page profile templates. Pupils can use them that have an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) or are getting SEN support. Speak to your school to find out if your child has a profile or if one can be set up.