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About Us
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You can also see a video about Anne here:
The Being the Boss Webmaster writes: Hi, my name is Anne Pridmore and I live in a small market town in the Midlands. I married in 1964, worked full time and didn’t recognise myself as a disabled person although I had never been able to walk. Twenty years later my partner left me, and I found myself at 44 years of age unable to do the most basic things for myself. As I had three months notice of his intention to leave, I contacted the Social Services asking them for help. Three days before he was due to leave I found myself unable to go for a pee, get out of bed or into bed unaided. The Social Services visited me and told me that they didn’t know what to do with me, and did I know of anyone who would “look after me?!”
Not only did I have the emotional loss to deal with, but also the fear of, at the age of 44, never having been alone in a house all night. Fortunately, in 1991 I was introduced to Jane Campbell, and through her the concept of Independent Living and the Independent Living Fund (ILF).
Between 1991 and 1993 I campaigned to persuade the Local Authority to allow me to swap services (home care, bath nurse, district nurses) for cash. This was my first step to liberation and the disabled people’s movement. It was a long battle, but the end result meant that 35 disabled people in Leicestershire were able - for the first time - to have control over their lives through the use of third-party payments.
With the introduction nationally of Direct Payments, the rest is history you might think. However, I have always felt that the most crucial criteria for a good Personal Assistant (PA) is the 'relationship' that you have between you. It is easy to teach a person to cook your favourite meal, but getting the relationship right is more tricky. Understanding what makes a good PA and how to make the relationship work is often about having good ground rules. Even though I am an experienced PA user, I am still learning, and I certainly still continue to have problems recruiting and managing staff.
Whilst there is a lot of support available from service user-led organisations, peer support at a national level is very scarce. Even at a local level, many peer-support groups have now closed due to lack of funding. I have therefore created this website to address the lack of peer support available to disabled people who employ our own Personal Assistants (PAs).
We aim to do this by sharing information based on the experiences of disabled people who employ our own PAs, and by providing a safe forum to discuss/share ideas. It is very important to appreciate that there is no ONE correct way of working with PAs. We all have our different approaches and we must respect and value this. However, we can all learn from and support each other to become better employers and to have a better relationship with our PAs.
NB: The website is for disabled people who employ PAs however they are funded - it is NOT just for disabled people who are receiving Direct Payments or Individual Budgets from the local authority.
