Today I’m going to write about a topic I feel that I’ve had a lot of experience in, which is having PAs. Throughout my life I’ve had more PAs than I can count. Along with school ones, I’ve also had multiple PAs outside of school. Hopefully this blog will help you if you’re someone who needs a PA or your a PA yourself, maybe you’re just someone who is curious about what a good PA looks lik. Regardless, here’s my experience with PAs.
(in case you are confuse, PA stands for Personal Assistant but this includes anyone employed to help a disabled person)
What does a good PA look like?
In my experience, a good PA is someone who’s prepared to listen to you. They should view you as an equal (no matter your age) and respect you as they would anyone else. I also think that a good PA doesn’t make anything an awkward situation (e.g. help with personal care) respect your boundaries and they should at least make an effort to get to know you and treat you as they see others treat you. Finding someone that you trust and genuinely enjoy spending time with is really helpful and the right people will always aid you to be more independent rather than holding you back.
Red flags in PAs
There are a few big things to look out for in PAs that can help you realise that they aren’t a good PA for you. If you feel uncomfortable with the person for any reason (you don’t need to justify yourself) you have to vocalise that. You do not need to put up with someone if you don’t want to, you can speak to a head teacher or care provider and ask for someone else. Another red flag is that they don’t listen to you, if you ask them to do or not do something, they should respect your wishes. It’s really important for young people to understand that they have a voice. I want to write a bit about my experience with a PA who I had for 4 years who really wasn’t a good match for me. I had her from Primary 1 until Primary 4 and looking back on it now I realise the extent of the effect it had on me. My PA was someone who very much treated me like her child rather than her equal which I can understand because I was very young. She was very hard on me (which isn’t always bad) but she would constantly and quite aggressively shout at me for anything I did that wasn’t up to her standard and occasionally would be angry with me for choking on food or being sick (which are things I couldn’t help). She had a bit of a reputation at the school for dealing with misbehaved children which I feel like made me feel like I was misbehaved. Eventually after her being really hard on me and me getting so stressed out about her, I spoke to my parents and to the head teacher and moved on to a different PA, who was so kind and I had a really nice relationship with. I was (and still am) genuinely afraid of my original PA and I think my whole experience with her has given me some issues with trusting PAs but all the PAs in my Secondary school are amazing and I haven’t had a (seriously) bad PA in Secondary since.
The moral of the post is, make sure that the people helping you are people you like and don’t be afraid to say something if you’re not happy.