10 minutes
Presence and belonging See the difference between being in the community and being part of it, and where plans produce the first while recording the second.
What you’ll be able to do Distinguish presence from belonging using three tests, and identify one activity in a person's plan that produces presence only. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most accurate reading? Document a next step for Presence and belonging: Apply the three tests to every community activity in one person's plan. In the community, not of it Closing institutions and supporting people to live in ordinary neighborhoods was one of the great achievements of disability policy. It solved the problem of where people lived. It did not, by itself, solve the problem of whether anyone knew them. A person can live in an apartment on an ordinary street for twenty years, go to the shops, the park and the library every week, and have no one in their life who is not paid to be there. They are present in the community and belong to nothing in it.
Service plans tend to record presence as belonging because presence is what services can schedule. A trip to the store is a unit of service. Being a regular at the store, known by the staff, greeted by name, is not a unit of anything, and it is the thing that matters.
Presence or belonging? A weekly group trip to a shopping center with three other program participants and a worker.
Choose a category Presence Belonging Volunteering every Tuesday at the same food shelf, where the coordinator saves the sorting job for him.
Choose a category Presence Belonging Attending a different community event each week chosen by staff.
Choose a category Presence Belonging Singing in a church choir for nine years; they called when she missed two Sundays.
Choose a category Presence Belonging A walk in the park with a worker.
Choose a category Presence Belonging Being the person at the community garden who knows where every tool goes.
Choose a category Presence Belonging Check matches Reset Three tests: does anyone there know the person's name, does the person have a role, and would anyone notice if they stopped coming.
Apply the tests to the plan What you can change You control what the plan records as community integration. Applying the three tests to every activity is how the record stops flattering itself.
What to watch for Do not count outings as belonging. An outing is presence with a schedule.
Your next step At the next plan review, ask the three questions of every community activity listed.
Carry this forward Presence is being physically in a community setting. Belonging is being known there, having a role, and being missed when absent.
Most community activities in service plans produce presence: a group outing to a store, a walk in the park with a worker, a visit to a library. They are recorded as community integration and they are not.
The tests are simple: does anyone there know the person's name, does the person have a role, and would anyone notice if they stopped coming?
A sort separating presence from belonging, a statement, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Apply the three tests to every community activity in one person's plan.
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Course overview Next lesson Carry this into practice Why a person can live in the community for years and belong to nothing in it, what natural supports actually are, how to map the places and people that already exist, and how to build one connection that does not depend on a paid worker.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
