Overview

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Mission

Person Driven Clinical Solutions, LLC  (PDCS) is a qualified provider of supports and Behavioral Support Services to individuals with Mental Health / Intellectual Developmental Disabilities. PDCS, LLC also offers individualized technical assistance; on-site consultations and trainings to a variety of organizations across the United States interested in becoming truly Person Driven. It is primarily under contract with human service organizations participating in the public social service systems of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Being Person Driven

Being Person Driven integrates Positive Approaches, System Thinking and the contributions of two very influential groups: The important work of the Heart and Soul of Change Project  summarizing what we are learning from years of outcome research as well as the simplicity and wisdom of the Nonviolent Communication model developed by Marshall Rosenberg . It is representative of the necessity for providers to rebalance the traditional power structure within programs, supports and services.

Microviolence Definition

Although we support people with complex clinical presentations, most of our work is not primarily clinical in nature.

Most of the individuals we support have challenging behaviors in reaction to:

• How we perceive and respond to their clinical issue(s) and requests
• What we do in the name of helping them

Most of the challenging behaviors we see and hear every day are:

• In response to the microviolence the individuals we support experience in their everyday lives 
• Strategies someone is using to try to get their needs met
• Feedback to us as helpers directly related to what we do in thename of helping the person

Microviolence is what someone is experiencing when they are subjected to brief, subtle and commonplace everyday words, actions, or therapeutic interventions, often expressed and done in the name of helping by well-intentioned people, which also result in the unintended invalidation and oppression of the individual’s identity, feelings, needs, preferences or experiential reality.

This is a very elusive and insidious form of violence, it is often masked, hidden or disguised in our assumptions, language, expectations as well as practices and it often remains invisible because of a cultural conditioning process. These exchanges are so pervasive and automatic in everyday conversations and interactions that they are often dismissed and glossed over as being innocent and innocuous. Microviolence as an outcome can be created by any well-intended helper unaware of the impact they are having on others, in particular when they are only trying to help.

When trying to help, we are often unintentionally creating conditions where people most basic human needs are not met and as a result, many of the individuals we support have the experience of being: