NEW-FEMALE PA home1:1 as soon as posb 12-15hpw £13.47ph for 20-yr SLD girl whose Dad died. - BA ...

NEW-FEMALE PA home 1:1 as soon as possible 12-15 hours per week £13.47 per hour for a 20-year-old girl with severe learning disabilities (SLD) whose father has passed away. - BATH - BA2

Personal Assistant/Support Worker 1:1 in Bath

General:
12-15 hours per week, you as an Employee (not Self-Employed) - we, and you, being flexible (making arrangements in advance): Monday or Friday whole or part days, or Thursday afternoon; Alternatively any combination of these (other PAs already do the rest of the days of the week). AND/OR you could also do the occasional weekend.

Note that we have a total of 49 hours per week for all our PAs combined including you, funded by our local authority BANES. This is due to BANES being unable to find any other suitable provision for my girl ('B') since September 2021 when (after a successful first year) her SEN college excluded her due to its inability to meet her needs. Rate of pay is £13.47 per hour gross.

At this rate of pay (and when Annual Leave is taken into account as part of your earnings):

• 12 hours per week is just over the 'Secondary Threshold' i.e., as Employer, I start paying National Insurance (NI) for you (the Employee) while you remain getting benefits of paying NI while not actually paying any NI;
• 15 hours per week is just below the 'Primary Threshold' (above which you as Employee would start paying NI as well as the Employer paying NI).

Occupational Requirement:
It is an occupational requirement that a FEMALE works with B due to her vulnerability (lack of capacity), which is the reason for the requirement for 1:1 support and the personal care involved on a routine basis. This requirement is supported by our BANES Adult Social Care team.

Once a good PA is found, we (B, and myself - I am her mother and Deputy as she is without capacity) stick with you. Likewise, even if you do only a half day or one day per week (Monday or Thursday afternoon or Friday as above), the commitment of your support is very important because B's development is affected by changes to people (including PAs), places, and activities, due to her severe learning disabilities and autism.

Part of your consistency of support will be in supporting B to interact with her age-86 grandparents (her grandfather is developing dementia and her grandmother is more frail). This helps them and effectively supports B in return, long-term - because you're helping them live meaningful lives with their granddaughter for as long as possible.

The importance of this is that B does not lose one or both of them too soon after her recent losses - see next

My husband (of 32 years) died in December 2022. Then on January 14, 2023, my only sister died (she and I had no brothers). So B has lost her father and her only aunt, both within the space of three weeks. We all used to see each other a lot. The emotions are settled now and remain calmed for B by minimizing her changes where possible. As you can imagine, your help is all the more important and valuable and needing to be committed because of this.

You would be employed (by me), not self-employed. Being 'employed' doesn't commit you because the work is 'Casual' ('zero-hours') on a mutually-flexible arrangement of hours basis. B does require your commitment even if just one day or one half day per week, with you knowing from the start that she needs stability.

Experience:
Previous experience of working with clients with Autism and an appreciation of Dementia would be desirable; however, not essential, because Training is given, so provided you have common sense/a bit of life experience (i.e., personal experience and understanding), you'll find you get on with B's needs, her family environment including her grandparents, and her Activities. For more Person Specification see below.
Summary of B's needs:
1:1 support is needed for B's Complex Learning Needs and Autism arising from brain damage caused by Epilepsy in infancy. The result was her seizures reduced to only occasional short (half-minute) absences, and these are managed at home with the lowest dose 5ml oral-syringe of Carbamazepine morning and evening). She is physically able and enjoys the outdoors. Due to Severe Learning Disability, she needs help in all aspects of daily living and behavior: to access the community, support with communication (she is nonverbal except for occasional sounds), and hand-on-hand learning life skills including personal care. All these are helped by Activities (see next).

More detail on Activities:
Depending on the day of the week (other PAs take B out on certain days), you'd support her in activities, some that you would help research and set up, and some that we've already set up. I or another PA can initially accompany you on any/all non-home-based activities, if needed

1. home-based (daily living skills: personal - e.g., washing hands; domestic - e.g., cooking and stirring the morning porridge 'the wheels on the bus go round and round'; making and rolling dough; daily focused activities: e.g., posting shapes, playing her accordion/tambourine); part of this of course means you helping B when she attempts to interact with her family (and they with her) including her grandparents as they are in the home environment too (as above);
2. taking her out - e.g., to a farm, gardening, or to her existing spa (her swim - she has membership so can go anytime with a PA included), or cycling with her around the nearby park on her Fun-2-go electric side-by-side adult trike. These are not the only activities - e.g., we also hope to purchase her a 'Go-Talk 4+' to aid her communication which is her biggest area needing development.

-Because of the Activities:
Car driver required, with a full clean UK driving licence - B has a Blue Badge for use in her service (nearby street parking is easy).
If you also use public transport, we are in a quiet residential side-street off the Upper Bristol Road bus-route.

You'll need business motor insurance, then you can take her out (e.g., to spa) in your own vehicle - I can reimburse you to top-up any existing motor insurance to business motor insurance if you have to pay for it (i.e., if your previous/existing employer, or yourself, haven't already provided it). Also (out of B's BANES funding), I pay mileage for you driving to activities as well as the cost, if any, of the activities.

Right to work in the UK required:
For anyone with non-UK nationality, I would under my Employer legal obligations, need to have sight of AND make a digital or hard-copy record of your right to work in the UK. Digital includes via access code which you can give to me so that I can view your right to work status via gov.uk.

Other information:
-Covid-vaccination is not compulsory.
-Wearing a mask in our home is not compulsory; IF you have a respiratory cough or cold of ANY SORT due to the vulnerability of the grandparents, we would ask that you still attend (and wear a mask) in that case, due to the girl's need for routine with you to be maintained, unless you are actually ill.

Person Specification (more detail):
The ideal candidate will be physically resilient, have a calm but firm manner, and be able to safeguard from dangers, as well as promoting danger awareness for B, when in the community.

One does not have to be a strong person physically to do the job, but general good health and fitness and willingness (including dressing appropriately) for the outdoors are considered to be an advantage.

B's Needs (more detail):
B does have some awareness and communication abilities, predominantly non-verbal but with potential for verbal communication to be developed. Your role therefore includes, importantly, helping her with this (even if predominantly she remains non-verbal) by engaging with her and building an understanding together so that she senses you are trying (then she will try harder too).

This way any potential is 'given room' to be spotted and nurtured. By providing help at the right time with suitable activities, she is enabled in her small, individual version of 'independence' despite her severe learning disabilities. Her just TRYING things (daily living skills, activities, trying to be sociable), and US helping her to try (even for things she might never learn 'properly', or we 'think' that about them), IS her 'Education' - this is a 'Lifelong Learning' approach.

Examples of her abilities changing are

• sometimes very slowly with lots of hand-on-hand repetition despite a task being known e.g., her pouring juice into her cup, OR it is complex for her e.g., hand-on-hand cutting food with knife and fork;
• sometimes with her own spontaneous actions i.e., we suddenly notice a delayed exhibition by her that she's learned (through her having earlier watched others) e.g., pushing a wall light-switch, putting toast in the toaster, folding up her futon mattress; OR she learns by herself a new object of reference ('OOR') to show she wants something or to do something e.g., she has recently started bringing us her medicine dispensing tube (showing us that she wants the medicine) at around the correct time of day i.e., morning or evening only.

Training (more detail):
I always only require PAs to do with B, what I do with her when they are not here. With her needs being flexible as she develops and as any changes affect her, you should be prepared to accept training/advice from me as beneficial to her. But also your input will be listened to . click apply for full job details