"Every minute of delay in adopting person-centred practices we are failing the people we are called to serve" I volunteered myself to session host Julie Malette for the role of warming up the audience for a panel on "Organizational Person-Centred Journeys" with Keven Berswick, Steve Scown, Marla Maxey, and Mike Coxon. The panel led off the final afternoon of the sold out two-day HSA Canada Learning Community for Person-Centred Practices Annual Gathering, April 20-21 in Richmond Hill (Toronto, Canada).

1. Evolution of the Person-Centred Revolution
Keenan Wellar, MA
LiveWorkPlay.ca
@socialkeenan
@liveworkplay
Presented to the
HSA Canada Learning
Community for
Person-Centred Practices
Annual Gathering
April 21, 2016
Richmond Hill, Ontario
The original presentation
included animations and
other formatting that has
been removed for sharing
purposes. Notes that were
not visible to the audience
are shown here as slides.

2. Everyone is just a little flocking freaked
out by this wireless revolution!
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3. Is person-centred practice an example of evolution or revolution? For
those who don’t feel like thinking that hard right now, if you can guess
what the birds are saying you will win a free copy of my book.
Congratulations! Now that you’ve had a few seconds to think about it,
how many of you think person-centred practice is an example of
evolution? OK, and how many for revolution? Interesting, thank you!

4. At my person-centred
planning meeting I told
the agency how much
I enjoy defying gravity.
They put me on a behaviour plan
and told my parents I need to
develop more realistic dreams.

5. If you are wondering why I would ask such a question, it comes from the
realization that the conversation these two bovines are having is not udderly
far-fetched from what people with intellectual disabilities, mental health
issues, and many others are experiencing in our human services systems. I
recently attended a regional meeting hosted by the Ministry of Community and
Social Services which featured two presentations by Community Living
associations in Algoma and Parry Sound. In both cases they had decided to
close their sheltered workshops, and in 1 or 2 years both organizations had
completed quite dramatic transitions to assets-based, person-centred,
community-based supports. While each agency obviously evolved towards
making this change, the resulting difference in the lives of the people they are
supporting is most certainly revolutionary. I’ll return to this thought and
explain why I think it’s important. But first, another opportunity to win a book.

7. Who would like to take a shot at labelling each of these boxes? Well
done! Here’s your book.
For those of you familiar with what is known as Developmental
Services here in Ontario – which is our supports and services for
people with intellectual disabilities – taking into account the
cumulative work of the sector, thinking about where supported
individuals live, and thinking about where they spend their time, in
which box do you think the majority of our outcomes reside?
[Note: the audience was about 40% segregation 40% integration
with a smattering of votes for exclusion and inclusion and the rest
chose not to answer]
It seems we are not doing very well! Don’t worry, I have the answer
on the next slide.

8. How should services be judged? The extent to which a given
service delivers the result whereby supported individuals are:
• Sharing ordinary places with
others in the community
• Making authentic life choices
• Developing their abilities
• Being treated with respect
• Having valued social roles
• Growing in relationships
A version of this “Framework for Accomplishment” first appears in 1987 as a result of
the work of Nirje, Wolfensburger, O’Brien(s)…and can be seen in the many refinements
that follow, including the work of Pearpoint, Forest, Snow, Mount, McKnight…Sanderson
Is this a NEW idea?
A potential modernization grant proposal?

9. Given our outcomes are still falling far short of an inclusive result,
perhaps we need some guidelines of how we can do better! So here’s a
suggestion of how we might speed up the evolution of service delivery
in the pursuit of radically improved lives. What if these six bullets were
our guideline?
I see some of you with knowing smiles, yes, I’m busted, this Framework
of Accomplishment has been around for just short of 30 years!

10. THEN (2010) NOW
The way systems respond to a person with labels like those attached to Royce is almost always reactive in nature:
an increasingly restrictive approach that medicalizes unmet human needs as “behaviors.”
This approach tends to feed itself by INCREASING the likelihood and intensity of challenging behaviors.
The making of a community monster instead of the making of a valued community MEMBER.
Royce is now 23 and wants to live on his own,
says his father, Ralph.
But the family has been told he needs
constant care, and that there are no resources
available to meet his needs.
Home of his own
for 5 years!
Working as an
inventory specialist
at Dow Honda
for 3 years!

11. From front page (bad) news to a home of his own, a job, and a full life.
Easy? No. Overnight success? No. But what a result. And it all started
by asking questions, listening, building trust, and ultimately earning
the trust that is necessary to support anyone in the very intimate work
of helping them pursue their own goals and follow their own dreams.

13. So what’s taking so long? Why are people like Royce still being put in cages
instead of being listened to and supported?
I was rather amused at a recent presentation on supported employment
when it was suggested that perhaps more research would be required before
we could move forward with ending site-based segregated programs. I was
pleasantly surprised to find that I was not alone in the involuntary response
of “NO MORE RESEARCH, GET ON WITH IT!”
No offense to the consultants and researchers who keep getting contracts to
do reports on why we need a person-centre approach, but let’s face it, even
they are getting bored with past-facing studies. Let’s help enrich their lives
by insisting on future-focused research that illustrates the incredible results
of person-centred practices!

15. We do need to get on with it, and while I also recognize that we need to do
so within a culture of learning and sharing, we also need to bear in mind
that the delaying and stalling and ducking and dodging has a real human
cost for supported individuals who are awaiting their personal revolution.
We need to be clear that anything less than being included and valued isn’t
good enough.
I’m not speaking of this from on high. I am speaking of this having been a
proprietor of segregated and integrated environments for many years. It
seems like a lifetime ago that a colleague with the audacity to speak the
truth about segregation changed my life, changed our organization, and in
turn changed our impact on the lives of everyone we were supporting and
everyone we have supported since.
I am sure many of us here have had our a-ha moments thanks to the
courage of others, and the only way to pay that forward is to arm ourselves
with success stories and champion the benefits to anyone who will listen –
and even if they won’t listen, tell them anyway. They might still hear you.

16. What does revolutionary change look like? Sometimes it looks like a buffet dinner!

17. Before I turn things over to the panel, I’ll close with a final brief story. At LiveWorkPlay we’ve recently taken
the opportunity to work with some individuals who have taken the worst of what our systems have to offer,
with a result of outcomes like hospitalization, criminalization, and generalized dehumanization. Such
individuals are in need of the revolutionary change that only person-centred thinking can provide.
Let me acknowledge that just because person-centred practice is the right thing to do, it is definitely not the
easy thing to do. It’s at times exhausting, at times frightening, and often frightening and exhausting all at the
same time. But the upside is endlessly encouraging and exhilarating for all concerned.
With the exception of time with her family members or in clinical settings, Mary had not been out in the
community for many months. After what must for her have seemed like decades of waiting, we started
supporting Mary to move to a home of her own and re-engage with the community.
This is no evolutionary process. Despite endless planning, it’s still radically messy as compared to a traditional
medicalized approach. Of course it’s at times overwhelming for Mary too, as a person-centred approach
represents endless possibilities for a revolutionary shift in her quality of life. Sometimes a journey of 1000
kilometres begins with a single step…into a Chinese buffet restaurant. This was Mary’s choice. This was how
her journey would begin.
With some nervous moments for Mary, and probably many more nervous moments for her life coach, earlier
this month she did indeed enjoy her time at the buffet restaurant, where, of her own will, she pursued a
careful plan of dietary pursuits, perhaps one of the first Chinese buffet enthusiasts in the history of Chinese
buffet enthusiasts to plan for a balanced meal. As she began to relax and enjoy the experience, Mary decided
to celebrate her success with a fortune cookie.

19. For my final book giveaway, I’ll take the first close guess as to Mary’s fortune.
Thank you, and please enjoy these inspiring revolutionary panelists.
Truly, the best is yet to come!
Let’s keep the conversation going.
You don’t need my business card, Google me: Keenan Wellar 