Your Life, Your Choice: Support Planning Led by Disabled People's Organisations.

Based on qualitative research with eighty participants, this paper examines the notion of support planning, as it was experienced by people using personal budgets. The research took place during 2009–10, in three demonstration sites in England where support planning was commissioned out from local authorities into user-led organisations. In general, satisfaction with user-led support planning revolved around respectful styles of facilitation, good listening skills and the expertise brought by the experience of disabled people themselves. However, it was found that different styles of support planning were effective for different people, depending on several factors relating to their life experience, the length of time they had been disabled, the availability of family support and their connection with other disabled people. Whether social services or voluntary-sector staff are facilitating support plans, we conclude that some people need more help initially with support planning than others, and that a good model should differentiate and be flexible, to allow people to move towards independent planning at their own pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]