RESEARCH
Picking Your Pathway:
Training for Personal Assistants
Hello,
ARC supports providers of services to people with a learning disability.
We also carry out research throughout social care.
Independent Living Alternatives promotes the right of disabled
people to live independently. ILA is an organisation managed by disabled people providing a comprehensive range of personal
assistance services.
ARC and ILA have received funding from Skills for Care to look at the training needed by Personal
Assistants.
A Personal Assistant is someone who is employed directly to work with a disabled person to provide
personal assistance which may be both personal care such as bathing and dressing or practical help to pay bills and do leisure
activities. Usually the disabled person pays for a Personal Assistant through a direct payment, the Independent Living Fund,
an Individual Budget or Access to Work. A Personal Assistant may be called a Support Worker or an Enabler.
Taking part
in this important consultation will help ARC and ILA to develop a Training Matrix for PAs. This, in turn,
will be used by PA Users to understand what training might be needed by their PA, and where they might be able to find that
training.
It is necessary to clarify what is meant by training in the context of this project. We
are not talking about the training you give to your PAs to help them to help you in the way you like. We are
talking about the skills and knowledge your PAs need but that they can also use in another job (transferable skills). For
example: tea making: the training is the fact that a kettle is used to boil water and a teabag is put in a cup and boiled
water is poured over it. This is a transferable skill because a PA can take it to any tea making situation. However, the fact
that you like your tea strong/weak with or without milk is your personal preference. The same principle applies to lifting
techniques. How you like to transfer is personal preference; the transferable skill is the understanding of what constitutes
a safe handling technique.
Many thanks
ARC and ILA
