What is a communication passport—and how is it different from a participant profile or care plan?

What is a communication passport for?

CALL Scotland's Personal Communication Passports resources describe a personal introduction written from the individual's perspective. Passports can use print or digital formats, with pictures and photographs where useful. They are individual documents, rather than something that can be completed meaningfully by copying a generic example.

A passport might explain how you ask a question, express a choice or show that you want a break. It can tell someone new what helps you understand information and what makes conversation harder. That gives them somewhere to begin, while leaving room to get to know you.

In Australia, the Disability Gateway communication resources include a WAIS video about communication passports alongside resources on understanding a person's communication and supporting decisions. These are useful starting points for a conversation with the person and their chosen supporters.

Communication passport, participant profile, care plan or hospital passport?

These are common uses of the terms, not fixed categories. One document might serve more than one purpose, and a service may use a different name. Ask what the document is intended to help someone do.

There is real overlap. Scope's Best Care resources include a communication passport with communication preferences, medical history and mobility information. It would be misleading to say a communication passport can only contain conversation tips.

The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network hospital passport brings communication, personal preferences and health information together, and points readers towards relevant plans. It is a child and young person resource, rather than a universal Australian format.

For the separate question of which document sets out funding, support arrangements or a provider agreement, see our NDIS plan, support plan and service agreement comparison.

Keep the person's voice central

Start by involving the person in what the passport says, how it looks and who it is for. Offer the communication methods, time and trusted support they need. Family members and workers may contribute useful knowledge, but their interpretation should not quietly become the person's stated preference.

Presume competence: approach the person as someone with views to express. Using little or no speech must not be treated as proof that someone cannot understand or make decisions. Speak with them, support their participation and check meaning rather than directing every question to a companion.

Be clear about authorship. If a supporter has noticed something, describe it as an observation to check, rather than writing a confident first-person statement the person has never agreed with. Record who helped prepare the document and when it was reviewed. Leave a way to correct it.

Our guide to supported decision-making in a care team explores ways to keep the person's choices at the centre when other people help with information and follow-through.

A fictional example: helping a new worker listen to Miles

Miles uses speech, gestures and a communication app on his tablet. When someone asks several questions quickly, he may still be composing an answer to the first one. A new worker sometimes fills the silence by asking Miles's sister Jo instead.

Miles wants the worker to address him directly and wait while he answers. He and Jo prepare a short passport together. Miles chooses a photo, checks the wording on his tablet and removes a paragraph about childhood that he does not want to share.

The passport explains that Miles may use different communication methods in the same conversation. It asks the reader to give him time to finish his message and check with him if they have not understood. Jo adds a separate, labelled observation about an unfamiliar gesture; they leave it as a question for Miles and his speech pathologist rather than assigning it a meaning.

Before the next outing, the worker reads the agreed copy with Miles. Afterwards, Miles explains that waiting helped, but he also wants fewer questions while choosing lunch. They update that part, add the review date and tell the relevant team members which copy to use. The useful change is in how people respond to Miles, not simply in having a completed file.

A passport supports communication; it does not replace it

Augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC, includes ways of communicating alongside or instead of speech. Communication Hub's guidance discusses different communication methods, understanding the individual's approach and the support speech pathologists can offer to people and their communication partners.

A passport can explain how someone uses a communication book, signs or a device. It does not replace access to those methods, opportunities to communicate or individual assessment. If the team is unsure how to interpret communication or support a person's communication system, seek suitable speech pathology input.

Similarly, a passport can point to an existing care plan, but it should not become a place to invent or revise clinical instructions. Keep necessary professional plans identifiable and current. Someone reading a short introduction still needs the relevant instructions, training and professional advice for the support they provide.

Keep the copy current, relevant and easy to use

Consider the next real situation: meeting a worker, attending an appointment or joining an activity. What does that reader need to understand, and what would the person prefer to keep private? A passport does not need to contain every report, diagnosis or event in someone's life.

Agree where the current version lives, who helps update it and how changes reach the people who need them. A printed copy may be useful in one setting and a digital document in another. Check with a hospital or service about its preferred process rather than assuming a file in your app will automatically reach its staff.

Use the specialist resources below to explore formats. A useful starting document may already exist; you can adapt it with the person instead of creating another competing copy. Revisit it when communication, preferences or circumstances change, and ask whether people are actually using it.

Where Kinovo can help with the shared follow-through

Kinovo can help an invited care team keep relevant documents, participant preferences and shared tasks together. For example, a task could identify who has agreed to review a passport, while the document gives authorised members somewhere to find the agreed version.

The authorised Team leader manages invitations; members use their individual roles and permissions. Decide what information belongs in that workspace and who should see it. Workspace access does not replace consent, establish authority over the person or make every document appropriate for every member.

If keeping those documents and agreed actions together would help your team, explore how families use Kinovo. Start with what helps the person be heard, then choose tools that support it.