Examining Individualized Participatory Approaches to Care for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Person-centred plans have been identified as an upstream approach to addressing the inequities experienced by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. However, little evidence on implemented approaches exists. This integrated thesis consists of two studies exploring individualized participatory approaches to care within community-care services, guided by an integrated knowledge translation approach. The first study is a scoping review aimed to identify individualized participatory approaches to care in the literature. The second study is a qualitative descriptive study utilizing semi-structured interviews with community-care staff (n=11) to understand an operationalized person-centred planning approach. The scoping review provides insight into the variability of care planning approaches while the interviews highlight key features of an operationalized approach that has led to positive impacts on the persons-supported and care professionals. These studies provide evidence to fill the gap between theory and implementation, supporting the spread of person-centred plans within community-care organizations across Canada.