What is Personal Assistance Services?
Personal Assistance Services (PAS) allows individuals with disabilities to receive assistance with their daily living activities and other tasks. PAS is founded on the belief that persons with disabilities can best direct and determine the services they need. PAS allows persons with disabilities to achieve their desired level of independence.
“Personal assistance” then means that we compensate for our disabilities by delegating tasks.
The term “personal” means customized to the individual’s needs. It also means the user (consumer) decides what activities are to be delegated – to whom and when – and how the tasks are to be done.
With the use of PAS, you are doing everything the person with the disability could have done for themselves had it not been for the physical, mental, or sensory disability. You will be conducting these tasks for them through the use of your arms, your legs, your thought processes. But remember, these are the consumer’s tasks that you are doing in the way that they would like them to be done. These are not your (the attendant’s) tasks to be done in the way you would like them to be done!
Let me give you an example. When I first started doing attendant work in 1985, I was feeding a young gentleman a piece of pie, when he asked, “I see you don’t like pie crust?” I was amazed at how he knew this, since he had never seen me eat pie. I asked, “How did you know that?” He stated, “Because you are not giving me any!” So you see, be careful or you will be conducting these tasks in the way you do them, which is not always the way the consumer prefers it. My case was feeding the consumer what I like to eat, not what he liked to eat! Always ask your consumer they way they like things done. It becomes their responsibility to teach you this. That is what makes them your employer.
Personal assistance allows many individuals with disabilities to achieve goals that many of us take for granted. Through personal assistance services consumers can once again engage in educational, vocational, recreational and social activities. For many individuals with disabilities, personal assistance services allow the consumer to live in a home setting rather than in a nursing home or care center. For manyindividuals with disabilities, personal assistance services can make the difference between living rather than existing!
Everybody uses assistance. Nobody can perform all the tasks necessary to sustain his/her lifestyle. For example, instead of individuals fixing their own cars, they take them to a mechanic. Most people do not know enough about cars or do not have the time. By utilizing somebody else’s knowledge and resources we can compensate for our lack of ability or lack of time. People like to specialize in doing what they are good at. Most other things they delegate to somebody else. In this way you can be more efficient in the sense that you will get more done, and focus your other time on what you want to do!
Good quality PAS is the only service that can maximize the consumer’s true independence. PAS is the most recognized, respected profession in the disability and independent living movement. Be proud of who you are, for you do far more that a doctor, nurse, psychologist and educator can do. These folks cannot keep an individual with a disability out of an institution, but you (the attendant) can!