As a result of cognitive and communication difficulties experienced by many people with intellectual disability, there is a risk that their opinions, views and preferences may not always be central to the planning process.

Picture My Future gives a person with disability time to organise his or her thoughts and to express the things that are most important in a way that makes sense to that person. 

 

Producing a Picture My Future resource that can be taken to a planning meeting will offer the planner an insight into the goals and aspirations of the person that may not have been gained through the traditional planning process.

In summary, Picture My Future is an important approach to supporting people with disability as they explore their goals and aspirations for the following reasons:

• Picture My Future gives the person time: time to think about the things that are important and time to organise those things in a way that allows that person to be heard.
• Picture My Future allows someone who doesn’t know the person well to gain a greater understanding of him or her in a short period of time.
• Picture My Future enables a person with disability to focus on the things that matter through the process of considering each picture in turn. This reduces distractions as the pictures anchor the conversation in the present and encourage a focus on the future.
• Picture My Future gives structure to the conversation around goal-exploration.
• Picture My Future encourages thinking about a broad range of things, rather than just focusing on particular area of interest e.g. cars or insects.

Self-reflection task:

• Think about situations that you have encountered in your professional life where Picture My Future might be useful.