Beth’s Story - Personal Assistant

I used to work in IT and when I got made redundant, I realised I wanted to do something more, something that made a difference. I started working as a PA for a family who have children with disabilities, 8 years ago. Over the years I’ve become very trusted by the family and I’m now their lead PA and help them with recruiting their support team. I work with them two evenings per week. I also work at Burton Street, when I started there I worked with both adults and children with additional needs. During the pandemic I became a team leader and I’ve now progressed to a full time managers role. I work with children during the school holidays and weekends and during term time I work at the Beighton Road outreach programme with adults.

I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to undertake a lot of training as part of my job at Burton Street such as moving & handling, epilepsy and PEG feeding. It is a worry that people are put into a position where their PAs aren’t fully trained. The family I work for have struggled over the years to find PAs to work with them, especially evenings and weekend cover. They’ve usually found people via word of mouth or professionals who have worked with the family in a different capacity such as teachers and teaching assistants and nursing staff. One of the challenges to recruit is the pay. I’ve worked for many years on minimum wage despite working one to one with one of the siblings who has complex needs that require a PA with the specialised skills set I have . I only got a pay increase above minimum wage in March this year. It had to go to a panel to be agreed despite my skills and experience.

My role has grown over the years. I started out supporting a child with high needs and progressed to supporting the two siblings who have cerebral palsy. I’ve cooked for the family, gone swimming and on holiday with them. That’s because over the years the family have come to trust me to do everything and anything. They have a dwindling pool of PAs and when agency staff come in they are told by the agency to strictly provide care for the siblings only and not to help out with any household chores. The siblings need to spend time with their parents and vice versa so if that means I get on with the cleaning so they can have valuable time with their children I’m happy to do that. The agency aren’t flexible to the needs of the family.

I love the siblings , they’re so happy and the family are so welcoming. I love the variation; we do something different every week. I feel like I’ve achieved what I set out to do, find something that’s more rewarding. I feel like I couldn’t be luckier to have found them.

Yes, I would recommend working as a PA, with caveats! There needs to be better training and pay for PAs and better support. It’s a highly rewarding job but I get why people are put off. I think the main skills and values to be a good PA are, being a calm, caring, warm person with a lot of patience.

When I first started working with the family I thought, “I’m never going to be able to do this” I questioned if I would be more of a hindrance than a help. You need to have perseverance and commitment, people value consistency and routine.

 Beth - Personal Assistant