Personal assistance

Personal assistance: What is personal assistance?

Personal assistance means quality of life. It puts you in a place where you can actively claim your right to live an independent and self-determined life. It enables you to be a neighbour, a partner, an employee, an employer, a customer, a parent and much more.

People who use personal assistance to cover their needs of support decide when they want to use it, where they want to use it, what they want to use their personal assistance for and who should carry it out. Persons with disabilities select their assistants themselves; they decide how much support they require, and they train their assistants themselves in all the chores they want them to perform.

Personal assistance frees people with disabilities from being an object to take care of and enables them to become decision makers about their own lives.

Selbstbestimmt Leben offers needs-based assistance. The first step is to find out whether personal assistance is really the kind of support the person wants. If that is the case, the individual requirement of support needs to be assessed in a second step, and then the application can be filed at the Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung (Office of the Tyrolean Regional Government) according to the Tiroler Teilhabegesetz (Tyrolean Participation Act). Of course, we offer support in this process and every step of the way.

Personal assistance at the workplace

If someone requires personal assistance for their education, to be able to study at university, attend school or work, they can receive personal assistance by Selbstbestimmt Leben. It is approved and financed by the Sozialministeriumservice (0). It enables people with disabilities to organise their work or education independently and self-reliantly.

People can apply for personal assistance at the workplace if they:

  • receive Pflegegeld Stufe 3-7 (attendance allowance level 3-7),
  • are already employed with social insurance payments,
  • will be able to receive employment with social insurance payments,
  • want to engage in a vocational training or study at a university or a similar institution,
  • want to be self-employed.

Personal assistance at work can support you with all sorts of practical tasks, such as mobility (bringing you to your workplace, work-related appointments, etc.), taking notes at meetings or lectures, carrying books or papers, assisting with copying, handing you things and many other tasks that are individually required.

We will help to find out how much support you require. We will also support you in the application process and help you organise your personal assistance.

Personal assistance with “MITTENDRIN”

Arbeitsassistenz Tirol (arbas) – an association for work assistance in Tyrol – offers work trainings for young people with learning difficulties in the framework of their project “MITTENDRIN”. Its goal is to find long-term jobs with social insurance payments for their clients. Some of their clients require personal assistance in order to be able to work. If that is the case, they can receive personal assistance through Selbstbestimmt Leben.

Personal assistant

People who live with personal assistance have a very active and challenging role to live up to. Just as well as those who are working as personal assistants, they need a high willingness to reflect. Because of this, a mandatory training is required for everyone who is either working as a personal assistant or living with personal assistance. We focus on clarifying and strengthening the two different roles for the person living with personal assistance and the person working as a personal assistant. We also introduce everyone to the basics of the Independent Living Movement.

We expect all our employees to be allies, to represent and carry along our principles: self-determination, equity, non-discrimination, demolition of barriers and the rapid implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

If you are thinking about applying for a job as a personal assistant, you are welcome to download one of our application forms. Please consider that you require German skills for this job.