Care or Personal Assistance around the World Articles
Tillander, Erik.  2012.  Working and parenting with personal assistance.

Summary of legislation, interpretations and other developments as of August 2012

In sweden there is a law that defines the rights people with severe functional impairments have to various fully funded services and benefits, including personal assistance. The law also defines requirements for a  functional impairments to be considered severe. This Law is called "The Law about Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS)" and is the subject of regular review. If you are too old or not sufficiently impaired to qualify for LSS services then you may only be entitled to partially funded services according to another law.

Tillander, Erik.  2012.  Benefit fraud in relation to personal assistance in Sweden.

Summary of legal cases, statistics and media coverage as of November 2012

In early 2010, Halmstad District Court handed down three judgments and several people were sentenced to prison for benefit fraud. These cases involved people pretending to be disabled, as well as other types of crimes, such as tax evasion and fraudulent timesheets that also figured in the subsequent discussion. In 2011 about 20 assistance companies were investigated, and two more people were convicted in February 2012.http://assistanskoll.se/20120209-Dom-mot-agare-till-assistansforetag-i-Halland.html.

Westberg, Kenneth.  2012.  Eunice Ya-Yu Kao, Taiwan - "Those who can pay have migrant care workers as assistants".
Institution, home care or migrant care workers are the options available for people with disabilities in Taiwan. Migrant care workers come from other Asian countries and work under difficult conditions. Since 2008, however, inspired by Japan, there is one user cooperative with about ten assistance users.
Dr. Adolf Ratzka.  2012.  The Independent Living movement paved the way: Origins of personal assistance in Sweden. Perspectives on personal assistance.
Chapter 2 Perspectives on personal assistance, Brusén Peter, Flyckt Karin (ed.), Gothia Förlag 2012 Adolf Ratzka Benign oppression Social policy is rarely made by the people whose lives it affects. Rather, it is formulated based on political considerations by politicians and bureaucrats who, by necessity, have limited knowledge of the conditions of other people’s lives – especially regarding those of us with extensive disabilities who depend on other people to survive and require practical assistance with activities of daily living such as getting out of bed, dressing, personal hygiene and bathing. The greater our dependence, the more others assume they are entitled to have opinions about our needs and the less those of us affected have a say in how we want to live our lives and what social resources we need. As a result, solutions and services often make us more dependent on others rather than independent.
Dr. Adolf Ratzka.  2012.  Personal Assistance and the Crisis: Now is the time to promote Direct Payments for Personal Assistance.
Presentation for Congress of the European Spinal Cord Injury Federation, Lucignano, Italy 23–25 May 2012 Already before the current crisis people with disabilities fared worse than the general population as measured by most social indicators such as income, employment, housing etc. But now the gap is widening as recent official statistics, for example in Sweden, show.
Dr. Adolf Ratzka.  2011.  Independent Living for People with Disabilities of All Ages.
Given the increasing number of older persons relative to the working age population, record level taxes and baby boomers’ demands for self-determination and quality of life, which changes might the Scandinavian welfare model have to undergo in order to deliver long term care to all who need it? In Sweden, direct payments for personal assistance are paid to mainly younger persons with extensive disabilities. In terms of perceived quality and cost per hour of service, direct payments have been found to be more efficient than traditional local government services. But would this favorable experience hold for all persons in need of assistance with the activities of daily living – regardless of age, diagnosis and minimum needs? What would be such a policy’s cost and effects on the labor market? How could it be financed? Would it threaten younger disabled persons’ relative favorable present situation? Today’s Swedish policy of cash payments for the purchase of personal assistance services might be of interest as a long term care solution for tomorrow’s older persons.
Westberg, Kenneth, Berg Susanne, Dr. Adolf Ratzka.  2012.  Personal Assistance in Sweden.

The Independent Living Institute (ILI, Sweden) Sweden has written this report on Personal Assistance in Sweden for the Expertise Centre Independent Living, Flanders, Belgium.

We gave ILI a list containing questions and topics on hot issues in Flanders. What is the legal framework? How does the assessment take place? What is the assistant's statute? What are the experiences with private enterprises? In this report, Kenneth Westberg answers these questions. He has written this report under the guidance of PhD. Adolf Ratzka.

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Westberg, Kenneth.  2011.  Bente Skansgård, ULOBA, Norway: “Municipal procurement threatens assistance users’ self-determination”.
Municipal contracts should be based on the Norwegian Standard and the basic philosophy of user-controlled personal assistance, with the user as supervisor and the freedom to use assistance hours at any time. The upcoming legislation for user-controlled personal assistance (Brukerstyrt personlig assistanse, BPA) should cover everyone regardless of number of hours needed or diagnosis. These are the demands of Bente Skansgård at ULOBA, Norway’s largest assistance cooperative.
Westberg, Kenneth.  2010.  Latvia: “The view of people with disabilities has improved”.
In Latvia people with disabilities who do not have their own financial means or cannot get help from relatives usually live in an institution. A small subsidy is available to pay a personal assistant, but it does not go very far. Irina Parhomenko works at APEIRONS, which is dedicated to ensuring that personal assistance legislation becomes reality.
Westberg, Kenneth.  2011.  Norway: “Government breaks its promise of legislation for personal assistance”.
Interview with Bente Skansgård, ULOBA on January 18, 2011. User-controlled personal assistance was implemented in Norway in 2000. The municipality has the monopoly in granting the intervention as required and has a strong influence on how assistance is organized—for example, by determining who can employ the assistants.
Westberg, Kenneth.  2010.  Tough struggle for personal assistance in Iceland.
Only about fifteen people receive personal assistance payments in Iceland, but new legislation is under discussion and interest is rising. According to representatives of the newly formed NPA Center cooperative, however, there is resistance within the disability movement. In addition, the personal assistance agreements may be too miserly because of the economic crisis. Today special housing solutions dominate the scene with common personnel groups, where according to Embla Agustsdottir from NPA Center, it is hard to live an independent life.

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