New Types of Worker - What factors disabled people feel are important in their relationships with their personal assistants?
What factors disabled people feel are important in their relationships with their personal assistants?
A successful working relationship: Research project to find out what factors disabled people feel are important in their relationships with their personal assistants.
Background
This project is research based and examines how people who employ their own personal assistants/support workers/carers maintain a successful working relationship with their personal assistants. The research is led by disabled people and explores how different people have retained staff and what they have learnt along the way.
The researchers feel it is crucial to identify what makes a good dynamic relationship from perspective of their disabled employer, in what is a unique employer/employee relationship.
This research will support the new types of worker projects. It aims to identify the training needs of personal assistants/support workers/carers and the subtle skills required in order to maintain the working relationship on a one-to-one basis where no witnesses are available.
The research funding was awarded in 2008 with a completion date of December 2009 and has been a steep learning curve for the researchers and Skills for Care.
Advisory Group
An advisory group was set up at the start of this project and it was agreed that the research would be led and carried out by disabled people. This project will draw from the advice of Skills for Care nominated staff; a small group of researchers and independent people who use services and carers to support and suggest ways of carrying out the research. Decisions about the research and the findings will remain with the disabled researchers.
The advisers are Anne Pridmore, Jim Thomas, Marie Lovell, Val Williams, David Stanley, Jo Hough, and Vicki Raphel
About the research
The aim of this research is to find out what contributes to a successful and effective working relationship from the disabled employers perspective.
The research will also identify factors that can hinder the working relationship from being a successful working partnership.
The objectives are:
- To define what is meant by a 'successful working partnership' from the point of view of disabled people who employ their own staff.
- To find ways to measure and assess the success of the partnership.
- To identify characteristics and circumstances which contribute to a successful working partnership, as well as those which get in the way of it.
- The research will also look at the issues that disabled employers need to acknowledge in order to strive for a positive working relationship that ensures the disabled employer is in control and to retain (keep) staff.
How the research has been done to date (methodology)
Reshma Patel and Anne Pridmore designed an advert which was placed in Disability Now; Shaping Our Lives; National Centre of Independent Living; Face Book; MySpace and Ceefax Community Pages. A number of support organisations were also contacted but were unable to help with this stage.
Reshma Patel wrote to the 35 participants who had expressed an interest in the research inviting participants to take part in this research project.
Focus groups with disabled employers were held in Birmingham Peterborough and Greenwich to explore what creates a positive relationship between the disabled person and their employee. Consent was obtained from all participants for video and audio recordings to be taken. Facilitators were available at each of the focus groups and both participants and facilitators were made aware of their role for the day.
Outline of what was done in the Focus Groups held between February 2009 and March 2009
a) Welcome and fees - housekeeping (including red cards for 'stop')
b) Ground rules - these were developed and agreed at the start of each focus group, so were slightly different for each group
c) Ice breaker in pairs - 'what does independence, choice, control and support mean to you?' this tended to result in people focusing on their own problems, rather than the words meant
d) Group exercises with a facilitator - 'How would you describe your relationship with staff you employ? How do you measure your relationship?' At end of this exercise, participants used score sheets (1-10) to score their current PA, and say why they chose that score
e) Feed back - 'homed in' on the 'qualities that make people decide what a good working relationship is. Points written up on PowerPoint, + audio + video recorder
f) Maintaining relationships - What would help you keep a good relationship with your staff? (This area was not well covered)
g) Further information - Participants had a deadline to submit any further information they would like adding to the research (no additional feedback was received)
Next stages
- The data is currently being transcribed and analysed
- A draft questionnaire will go out to all the participants for feedback
- The questionnaire will be finalised and will be available to complete on the net by as many disabled employers as possible
- Postal questionnaires and Individual interviews will be carried out to meet access needs of individual disabled people.
- Final report of findings
