Personal assistance

as a basis for

educational assistance

If we don‘t want our homes to become hospitals, we who are affected, must be able to decide for ourselves, who‘s going to

assist us when and where. 

Dr Adolf Ratzka

What does „personal assistance“ refer to?

Personal assistance refers to any kind of help enabling people with disabilities to live their lives according to their minds and as independently as possible.

Personal assistance involves all areas of everyday life where people, due to their disabilities, are in need of support. Among other things this involves personal hygiene, helping with the housework, helping to get around and helping to communicate.

What is personal assistance?

What is personal assistance?

As a person taking assistance, you choose your assistance yourself. You‘ll be directing them and you are defining the time, place, type and sequence of the assitance service.

Personal assistance is not attendance.

Assistance requires the person taking it to be active, while attendance is usually given to passive people needing help. We have to adapt the way we spend our day to the notoriously rigid structures of social service providers, which makes it impossible for us to define ourselves the time, place, person and type of assitance.

The concept of personal assistance

In order to be able to live independently you have to acquire these competences:

• Personal competence

• Directing competence

• Financial competence

• Organisational competence

• Competence of place

Personal competence

You decide on who is going to provide assistance. You enter labour agreements with your assistants, draw up work plans, do the pay-roll accounting, and deduct tax and social security contributions.

Directing competence

You do the training-on-the-job for your assistants yourself, as only you are familiar with the type and range of assistance you shall be needing.

Financial competence

You control the use of the available funds.

Organisational competence

You organise the way you spend your day according to what you need.

Competence of place

You decide on where you have assistance (home, holiday residence, educational institution...).

Transfer to Educational assistance

What does educational assistance refer to?

Educational assistance is any kind of help putting people with disabilities in a position to participate in educational programmes as independent persons and in a way that ties in with their wishes.

What is educational assistance?

Educational assistance is a segment of personal assistance founding upon the same principles:

• free choice of assistant

• directing the assistant autonomously

Centre forpersonal

assistance

assistance-taker

assistant

directing

billing

qualification

homeeducation spare timeemployment

educational institute

course trainer

course participant