Talk:Person-centred thinking

Deletion
I think it was a mistake for one editor to take it on themselves to delete this page. Where was the discussion around this? There's plenty of published material showing that Person Centred Thinking is an important aspect of Person Centred Practice in the field of health and social care in the UK and the USA. If there were genuine problems with the article, it would have been better to edit the article and change the content, rather than take the 'easy' option of deletion, which will simply discourage a prospective WP editor. I think we can do better than this at WP. River sider ( talk ) 23:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Why was the page here?
Hello Riversider2008! I proposed the page for deletion because it appeared to be nothing (substantially) more than a copy and paste of a organisations website, and hence potentially a breach of copyright, and certainly advertising/promotion. Especially when it links back to the website in question. So that is why it was nominated for deletion, and nothing to do with the actual subject. However having said that, and putting my cards on the table, I work for a FTSE 100 company, and the page sounds like just an essay of the type of meaningless business speak that excretes out of bloated HR departments and consultancy firms for HR departments daily and as such has no notability. I see no reason to have PCT (or PCP!) at all on Wikipedia. Obviously I am not alone as the page was deleted pretty quickly. So, it would be really helpful if you could explain why the page should be here, and then perhaps it could be re-written? I think it would also need to demonstrate an independence from the website that it was copied from, and the subject would still of course need to pass WP:Notability. Those are my thoughts on it anyway! Cheers Heywoodg   talk  07:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the question Heywoodg. It looks like we're having the discussion now, that should have been held prior to the decision to delete. At WP, there really isn't a massive rush, if there are problems with an article, given time, people will sort them out. There clearly were problems with the article on Person Centred Thinking, and these should have been tagged and people given the opportunity to sort them out, rather than showing such enthusiasm for deletion. PCP is notable not least because it is UK government policy, mentioned in several of the key policies on Health and Social Care as being crucial to their success, but also because tens of thousands of person centred plans exist, making a difference in many of those people's lives. In turn, Person Centred Thinking is a key part of Person Centred Planning, it's a set of values, tools and skills designed to enable people working in social care to focus on what matters to the person they are supporting, and put their learning for this into practice, rather than simply following a 'one size fits all' approach to social care. The editor who started the article on Person Centred Thinking was new to WP, and did not understand WP conventions, so they put up an article that was basically a cut and paste from an existing site. This however does not mean that Person Centred Thinking is not notable, it just means that the C+P article should have been radically amended by more experienced WP editors, based on the wealth of published material that exists on the topic, and that admins should have allowed a little time for this to happen. I share your distaste for "HR speak", however firstly WP is not about matters of personal taste, it is about recording the full extent of human knowledge, secondly person centred thinking does not belong to that area anyway, instead it's a set of practices that have emerged from the work of frontline family and professional carers. River sider ( talk ) 23:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Riversider, some good points. I would say though:


 * Does it need to be a separate article, or can PCT be merged into the PCP page?
 * It may be a fine line between describing PCT, and not going into WP:NOTTEXTBOOK territory. The previous page (and perhaps PCP) read more like an essay rather than an information piece of text about the subject (in my opinion). So enough information to warrant the inclusion, but not too detailed that it belongs in wikibooks or wikiversity. While someone not familiar will (say) the [Second law of thermodynamics]] may at least be able to tell that the page "looks" informational (even if they don't fully understand it), it seems to me that this type of page (PCT/PCP) could potentially looks more like WP:NEO.
 * Multiple independent sources would be ideal, and anything not from a company that makes money by promoting PCT would obviously look much better than the article as it was.
 * Those are some of my thoughts anyway. Cheers Heywoodg   talk  07:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Heywoodg, Person Centred Thinking is something that is different from Person Centred Planning, though it is seen as a foundation for planning to be effective. I think it does merit a separate entry, as it is possible for people to practice person centred thinking without writing a full person centred plan. I've 'been bold' and re-written the article from scratch, using sources such as the UK Department of Health, the British Institute of Learning Disabilities, and a major piece of academic research in which over 20 leading academics in the field of health and social care were involved. The website I've linked to that lists the person centred thinking tools and provides graphics is a non-charging resource. I recognise that the article I've put up can only be regarded as 'starter class', and probably needs a lot of improvement, but I think it does demonstrate Notability, uses NPOV and is based on reliable and non-commercial sources, so I hope this one can live. River sider ( talk ) 10:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks much better to me. Hopefully the new article, and this talk page will help those of us not close to the subject to see it's value. It is certainly easier for the layman! Heywoodg   talk  19:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Difference between person centred thinking and person centred planning
Person centred thinking and person centred planning are definitely related topics, but they are not identical enough to redirect any queries on person centred thinking to the person centred planning page. Person centred planning is a specific (and highly refined) application of person centred thinking, person centred thinking is therefore a much broader topic than person centred planning.

People can use one or two, or many person centred thinking tools without ever writing a person centred plan, and they can also use these tools to help them write other types of plan, such as a support plan. The way I think about it is, that if Person Centred Plan = 'House', then Person Centred Thinking = 'Building' (the process of building) or even 'Brick'. I can understand why people at first see the two topics as almost identical, as there are many common skills, values and themes, but they are distinct enough to justify having two separate WP entries.

It may well be however that we need to do a little bit more work on both the Person centred planning article and the Person centred thinking article to clarify the relationship between them. River sider ( talk ) 10:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)