System-Centered Planning

Brown wooden puzzle with several cylindrical pegs. Red 3-D triangle sitting, not fitting, in a circular peg hole.

The opposite of person-centered planning is system-centered or traditional care planning.

System-centered planning (traditional-care planning) is support services that are predetermined and designed based on a system perspective, though individual plans still exist.

Click each of the boxes below to learn more about system-centered planning.

Support is Predetermined

Focus is on treatment or support for a medical diagnosis– assessing and addressing needs.
Reviewed at fixed intervals and changed when necessary to reflect a response to treatment and progress toward goals.

Design Based On System Perspective

Goals are often identified by professionals.
People have to fit into whatever has been designed by the program.

Individualized Plans Still Exist

The support section is a directive about goals for staff to accomplish.
May be developed without the person involved, then “reviewed” with the person present.
Typically completed in one session but can be iterative.

While system-centered approaches may work well for short-term interventions such as smoking cessation, weight loss, learning a new language, or how to play a sport, system-centered approaches to planning where one lives or does during the day, can be very detrimental to the person who is the focus of the planning.

Illustration of a woman with blonde hair in a bun wearing a read jack and black glasses

Think about your own life – would you want to be told where to live, if you could work and where, or if you would be sent to a care facility during the day?