ULPA · USER-LED PERSONAL ASSISTANCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A CRITICAL COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

USER-LED PERSONAL ASSISTANCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: A CRITICAL COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The research project ‘User-Led Personal Assistance in the European Union: A Critical Comparative Analysis’ (ULPA) was implemented in the period 1 May 2017 – 30 April 2019 at the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL). The project was led by Dr Teodor Mladenov and supervised by Ines Bulic Cojocariu, ENIL’s Deputy Director. At different stages of the project’s implementation, the research leader collaborated with Dr Yvo Pokern, Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University College London, and Gabor Petri, board member of the European Disability Forum. The rationale for the ULPA project stemmed from the significance of personal assistance (PA) for disability rights. The development of PA schemes in the European Union (EU) has been key for ensuring the right of disabled people to independent living and community inclusion, as stipulated in Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the EU in 2010. PA has enabled the choice and control of service users in everyday life and over their support. Unlike most disability services which have been developed and led by professionals, PA schemes have emerged in a bottom-up way, through the activism of disabled people and their struggle for equal rights. PA has been gradually (even if unevenly) introduced in Europe since the 1990s and contributed to the process of deinstitutionalisation that has been actively promoted by the European Commission in recent decades. However, rigorous cross-national comparisons of PA schemes are still lacking. The ULPA project endeavoured to fill this gap. The overall objective of the ULPA project was to compare and evaluate user-led PA schemes for disabled people across the European Union (EU). The project used a participatory approach to research by including PA users and their organisations in all of its key stages. Theoretically, the research was based on the independent living philosophy, the social model of disability, and disability studies more generally. Research methods included literature review, content analysis, a survey and a checklist. The main outcome of the project was the co-production and piloting of a tool for evaluation of PA schemes from the perspectives of independent living and the social model of disability.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union