PhD conferral Ms Marjolein Herps, MSc.

“Real Lives on Paper Plans; Individual Support Planning for People with Intellectual Disabilities”

Keywords: care, people with an intellectual disability

Long-term care professionals work with individual support plans, which means clients and their families are regularly consulted about the client's the needs, wishes, and concerns regarding the care and support required to achieve the desired goals. This dissertation examines the policy and practice of using individual support plans when caring for people with an intellectual disability. Various aspects of these support plans were examined across five studies, such as what the plan contains, what individual clients think of their care plan, and how efficient these care plans are. The results show that a personal and professional approach is at odds with the pressure from systems to standardise.