The Individual Support Services Planning Process
This section is adapted from the Model for the Coordination of Services to Children and Youth With Special Needs in Newfoundland and Labrador draft (Departments of Education, Health, Social Services and Justice, 1996). The individual support services planning process is a method used to identify the child’s/youths strengths and needs and to prepare an integrated approach to meet those needs. It is meant to be a collaborative process involving the child, the parent and service providers including School Personnel, personnel from the Departments of Health, Human Resources and Employment, Justice and other relevant agencies working together to identify appropriate goals for the child/youth and the approaches to achieve those goals. The strengths, needs and goals which are defined by this process are recorded, and this record is called an Individual Support Services Plan.An Individual Support Services Plan (ISSP) is a summary of relevant information regarding the child and the program which will be followed. It generally includes the materials, equipment, relevant health information (eg. allergies),strengths, needs, goals (home, community, preschool and/or school), and other relevant supports and services identified for the child as a result of the ISSP process. It is also used as a long-term planning tool and over time becomes a record of the child’s accomplishments. In this regard, the ISSP is one of the most important records kept for an individual child.
The ISSP is a working document and as such should not contain background information or confidential facts which are not relevant to the supports required throughout the life of the plan.
The process described in this document, and in the Model for the Coordination of Services to Children and Youth With Special Needs in Newfoundland and Labrador (Departments of Education, Health, Social Services and Justice, 1996), is the process which you are familiar with at present and incorporates the same key components currently utilized by your agency/partners in their own settings.
While the ISSP process adheres to a certain format, the needs of the child and his/her family determine the planning approach, in practice, taken in any setting. The process must be flexible in terms of the level of formality and the format used. A child with more complex needs for instance may require a greater number of service providers and a greater need to ensure effective communication, information-sharing and consistent service delivery.
The steps in the ISSP process are illustrated in the following diagram (Figure 1). This diagram indicates a series of activities that may already be taking place in terms of service(s) to the child, even if these activities are not formally labeled "support services planning". In many situations service providers are already collaborating around a child’s needs, in partnership with the child and family. The purpose of this diagram is to lend clarity to the process, ensuring that decision-making occurs at the local level and results in desirable outcomes for the child in a planned and effective manner.
THE INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT SERVICES PLAN: THE PROCESS
Figure 1