Person Centered Planning Facilitator Training

This week I had the fantastic good fortune to attend Person Centered Planning Facilitator Training taught by Debra McClean who works at OTAC (Oregon Technical Assistance Corporation) in Salem.  For those of you who haven't heard of PCP, this is her description: "A process that assists an individual to plan for the future.  It is most effective when facilitated by someone who can assist the individual and those close to him/her to gain a clearer understanding of the individual and imagine creative future possibilities.    There are several recipes for this process, but all result in an Action Plan based upon the individual's gifts and desires for the future."
We learned the process for a day and a half, watched Debra facilitate a plan, practiced a few times with imaginary individuals, and then on Thursday, in groups of 2-3, facilitated a plan for a real person.  As you might guess, this process is wonderful because it is all about seeing what a person can do and does well, and then creating an action plan.
I will be doing one more observed PCP meeting, and then I will pay back the OCDD (Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities) who paid for my training by doing at least 3 PCPs per year for members of my community free of charge.  Because this is part of OCDD's commitment to supporting families, these plans are for individuals under the age of 21.  Anyone who has a family member experiencing disability in that age group and needs a plan is encouraged to contact me to request one.  I love this process, so I am very excited about doing these.  Anyone who specifically could participate in a meeting on November 29 or December 14 (or maybe 15?) and who would be willing to be my apprenticeship family would be greatly appreciated!
Meanwhile, Alexa is learning to create new sentences requesting things she wants using her reading folders from school.  This takes a lot of creativity, particularly when she needs to say something that isn't available, and she only does it after she's cried and yelled at us for 20 minutes or more and we still haven't guessed what she wants.  Today after gymnastics she wanted to go somewhere, and David thought she wanted to go to Panera, I thought she wanted to go swimming.  I thought she was just mad because she didn't want to eat lunch first.  She wouldn't come in the house, and was screaming and crying in our parking lot for about 15 minutes, finally it started raining, so David carried her inside, and I got her talker and created a visual schedule saying lunch, get ready, go swimming.  Finally she went to her talker program and wrote "children house".  Then I remembered that we went to the Wacky Indoor Bounce the other day and realized that's where she wanted to go.  She was so relieved that I finally got it.  While it's hard for us to listen to the screaming, and sometimes she's just mad that she isn't getting her way, I'm so excited about her using her talker this way.  Thursday she created a 5 word sentence asking for me to put her "Where's my water" game back on her talker.  It must be so frustrating to be playing a guessing game whenever you want something that your parents can't figure out and that isn't pre-programmed into her talker.  She's also learning to type out words, so  I have such big hopes for the future.