Picking Your Pathways:
Training for Personal Assistants
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.
Information to download:
- Questionnaire for PA Users: click here to download
- Questionnaire for PAs: click here to download
- Questionnaire version for screen readers: click here to download
Consultation Workshops
There will be consulation workshops held on
- Tuesday 24 June 2008 - Worcester
- Wednesday 2 July 2008 - Nottingham
- Wednesday 9 July 2008 - Bristol
- Wednesday 9 July 2008 - Southampton
- Thursday 10 July 2008 - Newcastle
Information to download about the workshops:
- Consultation workshops flyer: click here to download
- Consultation workshops booking form: click here to download
ARC also has a project, funded by the Department of Health, to develop a National Network for Personal Assistants that offers information, support, and peer contact and support. It is called PA Net and there is a briefing sheet that you can download, and also a postcard to use to join the network.
Information to download:
- PA Net briefing paper: click here to download
- PA Net postcard: click here to download
Contacts
At ARC:
Yvonne Furze, by email
Dorothy Robinson, by email
or call 01246 555043
At ILA:
By email
or call 0208 8906 9265
www.ILAnet.co.uk