Personal assistance from a welfare perspective, offering a variety of reasons is perceived as a different design assistance than is usually there in the public social assistance depending on the strong foundations of the handicap principle autonomy and influence is in terms of how, what and when the operation is performed. The aim of our study was to highlight the handicap principle influence and autonomy in the operation of personal assistance. It is intended both to illustrate the legislature's intentions and ideologues expectations and also to examine a number of managers and personal assistants experiences of the conditions that exist for realize these principles. In order to answer our purpose and our issues, we have chosen a qualitative approach. We have first conducted a literature review and secondly implemented six interviews with personal assistants and managers. As theoretical analysis concepts are used formulations in the process and legislation as well as previous research on the handicap principle influence and self-determination and also Hasenfelds theory of human service organizations. We chose an integrated performance analysis and reporting of our study materials. The results showed that the proportion of the disability, relationships and the organization is of importance for the realization of the handicap principle influence and autonomy. This indicates an intent which is diverse and complex since there are several aspects to consider in organizations where people are the raw material.

The thesis offers and systematizes the knowledge of the social services provided by the Law Digest, number 108/2006. This thesis is focused primarily on the most significant conceptual changes. In particular, the provision of new social benefits - care allowance, contract for the provision of social services, registration of providers, social services inspection, defining of required qualified assumptions for the work in social services and, of course, financing the entire region. Main shortcomings of these institutes are solved separately. Of the many services offered the thesis deals with one particular - personal assistance, its treatment in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. The thesis brings information concerning the non-profit organizations, primarily because they belong to one of the leading providers of social services.

Diploma thesis titled "Personal assistance for persons with a visual handicap" focuses on visually handicapped persons and specifics of personal assistance provided to visual handicapped persons. Diploma thesis deals with information relating to the eye sight as such, to the eye sight's function and to the most frequent diseases causing a visual handicap. Furthermore, it introduces visually handicapped persons, dissimilarity of their upbringing and education and psychosocial aspects that affects visually handicapped persons' life. My diploma thesis presents ways how visually handicapped persons can compensate their handicap and what opportunities exist in the Czech Republic for them. Moreover, it explains the term of personal assistance, specifics of accompaniment and communication of those persons and it explains how the relationship between a personal assistant and a visually handicapped client should look like. The empiric part of my diploma thesis concerns with a mutual cooperation and building up of mutual trust between personal assistants and visually handicapped clients, thus how the personal assistance provided to visually handicapped persons should work. Keyword Visual handicap, personal assistance, integration, communication, accompaniment, relationship

The purpose of this study is to illustrate where the boundary between being professional and being private in the line of work as a personal assistant lie, this study will focus on the perspective of the unit manager. This to clarify the ethical approach in the assistance matters for the unit manager. To answer the study's purpose and questions, six individual semi-structured interviews have been held with unit managers responsible for personal assistance in municipal activities. During the interviews, the unit managers shared their own experiences about the subject of the study. The empirical material has been analyzed with the help of normative ethics theories of duty and sense ethics. The result of the study shows that unit managers find it difficult to take a stand as where the boundary between being professional and being private in personal assistance lies. There are many different factors to take into consideration when discussion where the boundary lies for each individual. Having good municipal guidelines regarding the work of the assistance is something the unit managers see as a good tool for taking a position on questions about the work of the assistants. The empirical material also highlights that there is a lot of ethical dilemmas in the matter of personal assistance, and how the unit managers handle these.

<p>The purpose with this study was to investigate how parents experience their situation in life, having personal assistance at home to support their small children with disabilities. Different areas were investigated. What made them apply for personal assistance? How does the support affect the family and their parenthood? What would it mean if their children would not have personal assistance? The study was made using a qualitative method and the material was gathered through interviews. A combination of symbolic interactionism and system theory were used as theoretical perspectives. The parents described living with personal assistance as difficult. They express a combination of gratitude for the help they received together with a sense of guilt for not having taken care of their children themselves. It was hard for them to find their home turned into somebody’s working place and at the same time it was hard for them to feel at ease in their own home. In spite of these contradictory feelings, the parents in the study agreed that having access to personal assistance was a condition for their families to survive and that without it they would probably have been obliged to put their children into institutions.</p>

The purpose with this study was to investigate how parents experience their situation in life, having personal assistance at home to support their small children with disabilities. Different areas were investigated. What made them apply for personal assistance? How does the support affect the family and their parenthood? What would it mean if their children would not have personal assistance? The study was made using a qualitative method and the material was gathered through interviews. A combination of symbolic interactionism and system theory were used as theoretical perspectives. The parents described living with personal assistance as difficult. They express a combination of gratitude for the help they received together with a sense of guilt for not having taken care of their children themselves. It was hard for them to find their home turned into somebody’s working place and at the same time it was hard for them to feel at ease in their own home. In spite of these contradictory feelings, the parents in the study agreed that having access to personal assistance was a condition for their families to survive and that without it they would probably have been obliged to put their children into institutions.

Bakgrund: Lagen om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade trädde i kraft 1 januari 1994. Den skulle garantera personer med omfattande och varaktiga funktionshinder bättre levnadsvillkor genom att de fick rätt till bland annat personlig assistans. Arbetet som personlig assistent i hemmet hos personer med olika typer av funktions-nedsättning kan se mycket olika ut. Det har uppmärksammats att det finns brister i personliga assistenters arbetsmiljö. Syftet: Att beskriva personliga assistenters upplevelse av sin arbetsmiljö hos brukare som tillhör personkrets tre enligt LSS. Metod: Sex semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes, med personer som arbetade som personlig assistent, i två olika kommuner. Intervjuerna analyserades genom en latent innehållsanalys. Resultat: I resultatet framkom sex kategorier som beskriver assistenternas upplevelser i arbetsmiljön; professionellt förhållningssätt, respekt för brukaren, emotionell påfrestning, fysisk påfrestning, trygghet i yrkesrollen och stolthet i yrkesrollen. Ett övergripande tema skapades under arbetets gång: Välbefinnande i en utmanande arbetsmiljö. Slutsats: De personliga assistenterna upplevde trots stora påfrestningar i arbetsmiljön, både när det gäller de fysiska och de psykosociala belastningarna, välbefinnande i arbetet. De kände också trygghet och stolthet över att de kunde hantera den utmanande arbetsmiljön de ställdes inför. Företagssköterskan har en viktig roll att vara uppmärksammad på de arbetsmiljöförhållanden som de personliga assistenterna arbetar under. De personliga assistenterna behöver känna stöd och handlingsutrymme för att balansera belastningar de utsätts för i yrket. / Background: The Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments came into force on 1 January 1994.People with major, lasting disabilities have been guaranteed better living conditions by means of personal assistance. Working as a personal assistant in the homes of people with different types of disabilities can vary considerably. Attention has been called to various inadequacies in the work environment of personal assistants. Purpose: To describe how personal assistants for the third category of people under LSS experience their work environment. Method: Six semi-structured interviews were conducted with personal assistants in two different municipalities. The interviews were subjected to a latent content analysis. Results: The results are described on the basis of six categories: professional attitude, respect for the patient, emotional stress, physical stress, sense of professional security, and professional pride. An overarching theme was created during the process: Well-being in a challenging work environment. Conclusion: The results showed that the personal assistants experienced a sense of wellbeing despite major physical and psychosocial stress factors in their work environment. They also experienced a sense of security and pride in their ability to deal with the challenging work environment that they encountered. Occupational health nurse has an important role to be notified of the working conditions that the personal assistants working under. The personal assistants need to feel supported and room for maneuver to balance the loads they are subjected to in the profession.

Striking disparities exist in higher education and employment rates between young adults with disabilities and their non-disabled peers. This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of nine young adults ages 24-35 with neuromuscular disease and how their use of personal assistance services (PAS) impacted their pursuit of higher education and employment. Participants overall had positive college experiences and reported the easiest time coordinating PAS was during college. Families of participants expected college attendance, but the lack of experience with PAS prior to college impacted higher education; the need for PAS influenced choice of college. Participants used consumer-driven and agency based models, experienced great stress coordinating PAS, experienced low quality and high turnover of staff, were restricted in their ability to be spontaneous, and at times limited their needs to avoid asking for assistance. A significant amount of informal caregiving from family and friends was used to support higher education and employment. Participants speculated that societal stereotypes and low expectations of people with disabilities contribute to low rates of employment and higher education, and reported negative interactions with vocational rehabilitation counselors. Eligibility criteria for federal and state PAS programs limited income and created work disincentives, were complex to understand and navigate, and discouraged both advancement in their careers and the willingness to pursue advanced degrees. Young adults with neuromuscular disease are willing, wanting, and capable to participate in higher education and gainful employment and could not do so without access to reliable quality PAS. Efforts to prepare families and youth to fund and coordinate PAS, eliminate work disincentives, and coordinate transition planning between multiple support agencies could help break the cycle of poverty in the disability community and encourage employment.

Forskning visar att personliga assistenter är en yrkesgrupp som ofta har en bristande psykosocial arbetsmiljö på grund av att assistenterna många gånger arbetar ensamma hos kunden, har brist på tydliga riktlinjer från ledningen samt otillräckligt socialt stöd. Detta i kombination med kunders alkoholmissbruk och deras självbestämmanderätt kan ytterligare skapa utsatthet och etiska dilemman hos assistenterna. Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka hur personliga assistenter beskriver att deras psykosociala arbetsmiljö påverkas av kundens alkoholmissbruk. Vidare var det av vikt att belysa kundens självbestämmanderätt och assistenternas egna gränsdragningar i denna problematik. För att besvara vårt syfte valde vi en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod och intervjuade fem personliga assistenter som har erfarenheter av kunder som lever med alkoholmissbruk. Huvudresultatet av vår studie visade att personliga assistenternas psykosociala arbetsmiljö påverkas negativt av denna problematik genom att de upplever stress och oro. Det bristande stödet och otydliga riktlinjer var viktiga orsaker till den upplevda negativa psykosociala arbetsmiljön. / Research shows that personal assistans is a profession that has often been a lack of psychosocial work enwironment due to the fact that assistans often work alone with the client, the lack of clear guidance from management, and inadequate social support. This, in combination with the client's alcohol abuse and its soul discretion maw further create additional vulnerability and ethical dilemmas of the assistans. The aim of our work was to investigate how personal assistans describe that their psychosocial work enwironment is influenced by the customer's alcohol abuse. Further, it was important to higlight the client's autonomy and assistans own boundaries in this problem. To fulfill our purpose, we chose a qualitative research method and interviewed five personal assistans who have experience of clients living with alcohol abuse. The main result of our study showed that their prychosocial work enwironment is adversly affected by this problem in a way that causes stress and anxiety. The lack of support and unclear guidelines were important reasons for the perceived negative psychosocial work enwironment.

<p>Personal assistance from a welfare perspective, offering a variety of reasons is perceived as a different design assistance than is usually there in the public social assistance depending on the strong foundations of the handicap principle autonomy and influence is in terms of how, what and when the operation is performed. The aim of our study was to highlight the handicap principle influence and autonomy in the operation of personal assistance. It is intended both to illustrate the legislature's intentions and ideologues expectations and also to examine a number of managers and personal assistants experiences of the conditions that exist for realize these principles. In order to answer our purpose and our issues, we have chosen a qualitative approach. We have first conducted a literature review and secondly implemented six interviews with personal assistants and managers. As theoretical analysis concepts are used formulations in the process and legislation as well as previous research on the handicap principle influence and self-determination and also Hasenfelds theory of human service organizations. We chose an integrated performance analysis and reporting of our study materials. The results showed that the proportion of the disability, relationships and the organization is of importance for the realization of the handicap principle influence and autonomy. This indicates an intent which is diverse and complex since there are several aspects to consider in organizations where people are the raw material.</p>