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Person-Centered Planning


Person-centered planning is a facilitated, individual-directed, positive approach to the planning and coordination of a person’s services and supports based on individual aspirations, needs, preferences, and values. The goal of person-centered planning is to create a plan that would optimize the person’s self-defined quality of life, choice, and control, and self-determination through meaningful exploration and discovery of unique preferences and needs and wants in areas including, but not limited to, health and well-being, relationships, safety, communication, residence, technology, community, resources, and assistance. The person must be empowered to make informed choices that lead to the development, implementation, and maintenance of a flexible service plan for paid and unpaid services and supports.1

Person-centered planning is required or encouraged in over a dozen HHS programs including CMS Home and Community Based Services programs and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Block Grants. Person-centered principles and methods should be employed as a way to implement the CMIST Framework with each individual. For more information on person-centered planning see the resources from the National Center on Advancing Person-centered Practices and Systems (NCAPPS).

Implementing the CMIST Framework using person-centered principles can help you facilitate the individual’s return home, or to another integrated setting if necessary, in a manner consistent with the individual’s preferences and self-determined goals.



1 National Quality Forum, Person-Centered and Planning Project Final Report. July 31, 2020. Accessed August 7, 2020.