A Scribe Log From Violet: Must an employer provide space for a personal attendant in the workplace? According to the EEOC, employers are not required to pay for and arrange personal attendant care in the workplace because employers are not required to provide accommodations primarily related to personal needs. However, employers are required to consider allowing employees with disabilities to bring their personal attendants into the workplace. Thus while the employer is not obligated to pay for nor arrange personal attendant care for their employees, they are obligated to consider providing space so that the employee's personal needs (i.e. eating, drinking, toileting, etc.) are met. The only qualification is if the arrangement of space for the personal attendant creates and undue hardship for the business. From scott: What have you found to be the most used PAS service? ie...interpreters, mentors, etc. In our research, we have found that interpreters are the most used PAS, followed by lifting and workplace tasks related to people with physical impairments. We find that many PAS services are also used for people that are blind. From Dante: Do you find that an employee who uses a personal care attendant at home just brings his/her attendant into the workplace? PAS Arrangements are very individualized according to the employee’s needs and home and work. So, I would say that it is very difficult to generalize situations. But one thing to remember, a person who helps a person to eat at home may not necessarily have the skills to enable the employee to be successful at work. For instance, I interviewed a lawyer in private practice two weeks ago. He has a legal secretary as his job assistant as language and process is so important to the vocation of law. At work he needed, a person with very specific training and knowledge to be successful at work. From scott: Do you have any examples of interns using PAS? No unfortunately I do not. If you provide your contact information I can send you any examples we may hear of. Please send your email address to orslene@jan.wvu.edu From Stan: Have you heard of people who were self-employed using PAS? Yes, a number of times now. Beside the lawyer of which I just spoke, I interviewed a potter whose assistant helped her to buy supplies, Braille colors on paints, etc. I also interviewed a person who ran a cleaning business and he was quadriplegic. He had considerable strength on his arms so he was able to do much of his own care and the management of the business but he did need help going out to price new jobs. Many times a building was inaccessible so he would need a personal assistant to go into say the individual rooms and measure the size of the rooms. From scott: Thank you Thank you. If anyone else has questions or if you know of anyone that may want to be involved in our research please feel free to send me an email. From Guest29700: This is Lewis Kraus, the Director of Training and Dissemination at the Center for Personal Assistance Services at UCSF. I wanted to add that if people go to the Center's website at http://www.pascenter. org, there is a place to sign up for a quarterly newsletter that provides updates on the latest research and news from the Center. Thank you Lewis for that information. From Stan: Do employers have to provide personal attendant care when an employee travels for work? According to the EEOC, employers may have to pay for personal attendant care for employees who travel away from the work-site for business even though employers are not required to pay for personal attendant care in the office. This is because employees often incur additional costs for personal attendant care for travel and it is this extra cost that employers must consider paying. Please post any further questions to the web board. Thanks everyone I enjoyed the interaction. Lou