Maryland Positive Behavior Support Training
Building Relationships With Others
There are a number of different tools and strategies that people can use to become more person-centered. These tools and strategies can be used to learn more about a person you are support at work, with your own family, or when talking with people in your community. Person-centered tools prompt us to ask questions that help us know more about how a person likes to be supported, the types of everyday routines and activities that are important to the person, and other things about likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, health and wellness, and dreams for the future.
- Routines & Rituals: Ask a person to write down each step that they take getting up in the morning, having dinner, getting ready for bed
- History: Create a personal history by marking down the years when really important things happened (moving, traumatic events, medical issues, etc.)
- Hopes and Fears: Explore a person’s hopes and fears for the future
- Important Places People: Write down the places that are important to a person and the people who are most important to the person
- Strengths and Areas to Work On Over Time: Make a list of the strengths a person has and the areas they want to work to improve quality-of-life
- Hobbies and Interests: Describe favorite activities, events, or items that a person collects and enjoys talking about
- Health and Wellness: This can be written as a timeline that includes positive health outcomes over time or as a list of strategies a person is working on to improve their mental and physical health
- What Works/Doesn’t Work: Document the ways you can work with a person that the person finds helpful and what types of things cause anger or anxiety
- Barriers & Opportunities: List the barriers that a person has found in improving their life and the opportunities for moving forward in a positive way
You can use the information you gather to make a summary of what is important to a person and what needs to be considered as important for a person. Visit this page for more examples of person-centered relationship-building tools 
.
Charting the LifeCourse includes a set of tools anyone can use to help people plan their lives and improve services. These tools were developed with families in mind who support children across the lifespan. More information is available about the LifeCourse here .
Person-Centered Thinking refers to a set of tools and strategies that help people:
- Understand what is important to and for a person
- Encourage conversations and deepen relationships by learning more about what is important to and for someone
- Learn how people communicate using verbal and nonverbal messages and reflect on the importance of how our language impacts connections with others
Learn more about Person-Centered Thinking from The Learning Community .