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What is included in a plan?

It is your plan, so you get to choose what goes in it! A plan can have words, pictures, or both.

Your plan might also have information that helps people get to know you. This might include:

Your vision

• your dreams
• your hopes for the future

Getting to know you

• routines that are important to you
• your history
• your likes and dislikes
• your health
• what you want to do in your life

Your relationships

A plan also includes who is in your life right now.

Thinking about relationships is a good way to discover:

• who you might want to get to know better, and
• who you might be able to spend time with.

Your talents and abilities

A plan should also talk about the great things about you, like:

• your talents
• your strengths
• things you are good at
• things you enjoy doing
• things others count on you for
• things you would like to try

How you communicate

It's also very important to make sure others understand how you communicate what you want and need. Not everyone talks with words. Instead, you might use:

• sign language
• pictures
• sounds
• a computer keyboard
• the understanding of your family and friends of what you want

Exploring and knowing your community

It's good to find things that you are interested in doing. In your plan, you might talk about places:

• where you can learn
• where you can volunteer
• where you can work
• where you can become a member
• that are nearby in your neighbourhood
• that you go to regularly
• that give you a sense of belonging

Your needs

We all have certain needs to build a good life in community. It is good to put these needs in your plan. Some examples of your needs might be:

daily routines	health	transportation
experiences support	safety and security	skills coaching
relationships	learning

 

Goals

Goals help you figure out what you want to do in your life.
Goals can include:

• who you want to have in your life
• how you want to spend your day, evening and weekends
• where you want to work and volunteer

An example of setting a goal

If one of your goals is to find a job, then there are thinking steps and action steps you can take to work towards your goal.

Thinking steps

• think about the things you like to do
• think about the things you are really good at
• think about the things you would like to try

Action steps

• match up the things you thought about with the kind of jobs you might do
• tell your family, friends, and supporters about the kinds of jobs you want so that they can help you look
• find out what the job is like by talking to people who are doing it now
• talk to an employment agency

Action

Your plan will not just be something that is written down on a piece of paper - you will need to act on it and make it happen. Your plan should answer these kinds of questions:

• What is going to happen?
• How is it going to happen?
• Who will help make it happen?
• When is it going to happen?

Person-directed planning Always leads to Action.