Projet de Vie MDPH: How to Write a Life Plan That Actually Works

The Projet de Vie is the section of the MDPH application that most expat families underestimate — and most often get wrong. It sits inside the main 20-page Cerfa 15692-01 dossier as an open-text narrative. Evaluators use it to understand the real-world impact of your child's disability. And because the MDPH evaluation committee (the EPE) almost never meets the child in person, the Projet de Vie is frequently the most powerful piece of evidence in the entire file.

Getting it wrong — too brief, too clinical, or too vague — is one of the primary reasons MDPH applications result in partial decisions or outright rejections.

What the Projet de Vie Actually Is

The French name translates literally as "life project." It's not a medical summary and it's not a school report. It is a parent-written account of what your child's life looks like because of their disability. What they cannot do without help. How the family has adapted. What support would enable them to participate more fully.

The EPE — a multidisciplinary team of doctors, psychologists, social workers, and educational specialists — uses the Projet de Vie alongside the medical certificate (Cerfa 15695-01) and the school assessment (GEVA-Sco) to evaluate the severity of need. They are looking for evidence that the level of support requested is genuinely necessary. A weak Projet de Vie tells evaluators very little; a strong one shapes the decision.

What the EPE Is Actually Looking For

Three elements matter most:

1. Functional impact, not diagnostic labels.

The EPE already knows your child's diagnosis from the medical certificate. What they need from the Projet de Vie is a description of what that diagnosis means in practice. Not "my child has autism" but "my child requires verbal prompting every 10–15 minutes to stay on task, becomes dysregulated during unstructured transitions, and cannot independently manage arrival, lunch breaks, or pack-up routines without 1-on-1 guidance."

Specificity is what creates a compelling case. A day-in-the-life narrative format works particularly well: walk through a school day from arrival to dismissal and describe exactly where and how your child needs support.

2. Family retentissement (family impact).

The Projet de Vie must describe the toll on the family, not just the child. This element surprises many expat families who assume the form is about the child's needs alone.

The EPE factors in retentissement familial (family burden) as part of the needs assessment. Include concrete detail: which parent reduced their working hours and by how much, what private therapies you are currently paying for out of pocket, whether sleep disruption affects the household, how the disability affects siblings. This is not exaggerating — it is providing the data that enables the committee to accurately assess the full scope of support required.

3. Explicit and specific requests.

The Projet de Vie is the place to make the case for exactly what you need. Don't leave the committee to infer. If you need an AESH-individuel (dedicated to your child alone), state it and explain why a mutualized AESH who shares time between several students would be insufficient. If you need specialized IT equipment, specify what type and why. If you are requesting a ULIS placement rather than a mainstream class, articulate the reasoning.

Vague requests — "we think some support would help" — receive minimal allocations. Specific, justified requests force the evaluators to engage with whether your evidence supports them.

How to Structure a Strong Projet de Vie

There is no official structure mandated by the MDPH. The open-text format is intentional. However, the following structure produces strong outcomes:

Opening: the child's profile. Three to five sentences covering the diagnosis, age, current school level, and the core functional challenge. Keep it factual and direct.

Section 1: Impact on schooling. This is the longest section. Describe a typical school day in detail. Identify every moment where the child needs support and describe what happens without it. Use teacher observations, therapy reports, and your own daily experience as source material. Referencing specific incidents that illustrate the need is effective — not to dramatize, but to make abstract concepts concrete for evaluators who have never met your child.

Section 2: Impact on daily life. School is not the only context the MDPH considers. Describe limitations at home: dressing, eating, hygiene, sleeping, managing transitions between activities. Even if you are requesting school-specific support, the broader picture of functional limitation strengthens the case.

Section 3: Family impact. Employment changes, private therapy costs (list them with approximate monthly amounts), impact on siblings, impact on the primary caregiver's wellbeing.

Section 4: Current support and its limitations. What is the family currently providing privately that state support would reduce? This demonstrates ongoing need and the gap between what exists and what is required.

Section 5: The specific requests. State clearly what you are requesting and why. One paragraph per request, with justification.

Writing in French: Practical Guidance for Expat Families

The Projet de Vie must be in French. Submissions in English will result in the dossier being returned.

Common errors made by expat families:

Machine-translated prose. Machine translation of complex personal narrative tends to produce grammatically awkward text that undermines credibility. If your French is not strong, write the draft in English first, then work with a bilingual professional to render it into natural, appropriate French — not just a word-for-word translation.

Using clinical diagnostic language as a substitute for functional description. French MDPH evaluators are not impressed by a list of Anglo-Saxon diagnostic terms. They need functional descriptions that map to French administrative evaluation criteria.

Understating the impact. Many parents — particularly from Anglo-Saxon cultures where understatement is normalized — describe their child's situation in moderate, measured terms. In the MDPH context, this reads as "the situation is manageable without significant support." The Projet de Vie needs to accurately reflect severity, not soften it.

Omitting financial evidence. If the family is paying for private speech therapy (orthophoniste), occupational therapy, ABA therapy, or tutoring because state services have long waiting lists, list these costs with monthly amounts. They are part of the evidence for need.

What "Projet de Vie Examples" Actually Look Like

There is no publicly available set of approved Projet de Vie templates from the MDPH. The form is intentionally open-ended to accommodate the full range of disability types. What exists online are general guidance documents from advocacy organizations like Autisme France and UNAPEI, and forum-shared examples from parent communities.

The most useful reference points are:

• Autisme France's public guidance on constructing the MDPH dossier Projet de Vie
• UNAPEI's dossier templates for intellectual disability cases
• The MDPH's own evaluation criteria (available through the CNSA — the national disability authority)

These are all in French. The France Special Education Blueprint includes English-language guidance on drafting the Projet de Vie for the most common conditions presenting in expat school-aged children (dyslexia, ADHD, autism spectrum, and developmental language disorders), with bilingual phrasing frameworks that translate your child's functional profile into the terminology French evaluators use.

Before You Submit

One final check: the Projet de Vie should be consistent with the medical certificate and the GEVA-Sco. If the Projet de Vie describes a child who cannot function in mainstream school without continuous support, but the GEVA-Sco reflects that the school is managing fine with minor adaptations, the evaluators will note the discrepancy and it may reduce the strength of your case. Review all three documents together before submission and ensure the picture they collectively present is coherent and accurate.

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