This photo is from a P.A.T.H. planning session with Community Sponsor groups at the Carmarthen Citizens Cymru conference

Remember what we discussed in this module: Your purpose is to empower families to live independent lives. Since you are dedicating your time to this project, it is likely that you care very deeply about supporting people. This is brilliant, but it is important that your compassion doesn’t lead you to doing things for the family or making decisions on their behalf, rather than guiding them to solve problems themselves, and to build the skills they need to live with autonomy and resilience.

This could be the first time in many years that the family have had the freedom to make decisions and plan for their future. They were forced to leave their home, and whether they fled to a refugee camp or to a city, they probably had very few opportunities or agency in their host country.

Consider how you would feel if a group of people you have recently met held private meetings to make decisions about your future and the future of your children. Therefore, you should not hold group meetings without the family members present - unless it is for good reason (for example, a peer-support session, a group dynamic issue, or safeguarding issue)

What is Person Centred Planning?

As the name suggests, Person Centred Planning tools are designed to put the person at the centre of the planning process. It is therefore a process of constant learning and listening.

Person Centred Planning helps people or groups to set their own goals and plan how to achieve them. These tools can help you to set goals together with the family and think creatively about how they can help them to try and achieve those goals.

Below you can find a snippet from our Lunch & Learn on Person-Centred Planning where educational psychologist Tim Cox takes us through how to run PCP sessions for resettled family.

Some Useful Tools for Person Centred Planning:

We have attached three useful frameworks to help with Person Centred Planning:

Attached - The Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH) Framework

Attached - Reset’s Goal Setting Framework (and editable template)

Attached - Personal Integration Plan (adapted on one designed by Refugee Council for Gateway resettled clients)

Principles of Empowerment:

As you support the family to plan for their futures, we encourage you to follow these principles of empowerment:

• Empower families to make their own choices.
• Provide families with enough information to make informed decisions.
• Encourage families to be independent.
• Support their decisions – whether or not you agree with them
• And our ‘Iron Rule’: Never do for others what they can do for themselves.

What does that mean for you?

• Families will make decisions for themselves and set their own goals they work towards.
• You work in partnership with families – they are not dependent on you.
• Sometimes, families will make decisions you disagree with and sometimes they will make mistakes.
• Some people may need more encouragement than others.