JCAAA Services - Personal Assistance Service

Personal Assistance Service consists of services and activities that are provided to the physically disabled in a way that recognizes and enhances the highest level of independence possible. Essentially, Personal Assistance is an in-home service that is adapted to each consumer's individual needs and capabilities. The Personal Assistance service is delivered by an attendant that focuses on personal care needs even though they may include other in-home services.

This service shall include primary "hands-on" personal care assistance with more than one of the following basic activities that are provided daily in order to maintain the care of one's self, regardless of who provides the assistance:

• Getting in and out of bed, wheelchair or motor vehicle
• Ambulating, with or without mechanical aids, inside the house
• Routing bodily functions, including eating or feeding (including meal preparation and cleanup) and toileting
• Bathing, dressing, personal hygiene and grooming
• Health maintenance activities

In addition, the Personal Assistance Service, may include the following activities, if these activities are ancillary to the above "hands-on" activities which establishes the primary need for the Personal Assistance Service:

• Household services including, but not limited to, shopping, laundry, cleaning and seasonal chores
• Companion-type services, but not limited to, assistance with transportation, letter writing, reading mail and escort
• At the direction of the consumer, assist with household management tasks

Personal Assistance Service is different from personal care and home health service on the following respects:

• It commonly requires at least daily personal care service (whether it is formal or informal services)
• It may provide through one attendant a range of services usually covered by different, more specialized, workers whose responsibilities are more limited and controlled by their agencies
• It is more personally orientated towards the needs of the consumer in the following senses:
  • It generally requires the provision of some service at odd hours
  • The consumers needs and capabilities to do for himself/herself with the help of an attendant generally carries a higher priority than the provider agency's need to structure and control service delivery

   

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