Mamma, pappa, barn och personlig assistent
en undersökning om fyra föräldrars upplevelser av att leva med personlig assistans till sina barn
The purpose with this study was to investigate how parents experience their situation in life, having personal assistance at home to support their small children with disabilities. Different areas were investigated. What made them apply for personal assistance? How does the support affect the family and their parenthood? What would it mean if their children would not have personal assistance? The study was made using a qualitative method and the material was gathered through interviews. A combination of symbolic interactionism and system theory were used as theoretical perspectives. The parents described living with personal assistance as difficult. They express a combination of gratitude for the help they received together with a sense of guilt for not having taken care of their children themselves. It was hard for them to find their home turned into somebody?s working place and at the same time it was hard for them to feel at ease in their own home. In spite of these contradictory feelings, the parents in the study agreed that having access to personal assistance was a condition for their families to survive and that without it they would probably have been obliged to put their children into institutions.