Your Life Your Way!
By Gretta Serov
So, as people with disabilities, who need support, I believe that we all feel that our support workers and our relationships with them, whether they are good or bad, are a huge part of our lives. How can we manage our support workers in a way that acknowledges them as human beings, with their own challenges, and ensuring that we get the most out of our support workers and life as possible. For those who don’t know, my name is Gretta and I’m a proud customer and employee of the amazing BMW Disability Services. As I am currently living independently along with self-managing my NDIS plan, I have the amazing privilege to manage and roster my very own care team, who are all enthusiastic amazing people. As some of you would know, managing my own care team is completely freeing and feels absolutely amazing, especially when thinking about proving my maturity and independence to both myself and others. Of course, this can be difficult to negotiate at times especially if you are like me and hate conflict. However, while most of us want to have friendships with our support workers, as I have slowly come to realize, there needs to be a point where we need to remember that we pay for the service which our support workers provide to enrich and fill so many gaps in our lives which were created by our disabilities. For me, the ways I need my support workers to fulfill my life include completing tasks I can’t complete due to my disability, advocating for me when my slower than average communication speeds appear to be a greater problem and just to be a listening ear whenever I need it, just like everyone needs occasionally. Although I don’t really like the idea of using my support workers as therapists, I do however sometimes need someone to talk to who understands my communication needs. As some of these needs aren’t generally physical, I have come to realize that I need support workers who let me get my point across, respect me, my surroundings, the way I manage my life and just joke and treat me as an average 32-year-old woman. As I now know what I really need from my support workers I know what type of people and support workers I don’t gel well with. This is when it’s time for me to step up as a sort of “manager” and decide to let support workers who don’t suit my lifestyle go, especially if I feel that our relationship is becoming toxic. It is at this point when I admittedly struggle. I acknowledge that the best thing is to separate our working relationship however I struggle with deciding how to inform this particular support worker of my decision. Being honest, I don’t really have any outstanding tips for how to carry out these processes. I do however feel that it’s crucial for all of us to remember that balance between making sure we make the most out of our support workers and needing to be respectful and friendly to them at the same time. As most of us struggle with these situations, I feel that it is vital for us to remember our support network and that it is always okay to reach out to this network even just to gather differing opinions.

Freedom to be Free! By Gretta Serov

becnhoney8
Jan 27, 2023
2 min read

Going Skydiving, Skiing, riding in a racecar and of course traveling everywhere you like…. If all of these things sound familiar, just like your dreams that have been bouncing around in your head for years then it might be time to have a real rethink about how you would like to manage your relationships with your support workers.

Before now, you probably thought that these all were dreams or even fantasies that would never happen. Well, talking from someone who has been in your position, having a disability myself, I can tell you that all these

dreams floating around in your head can easily become reality. The reason I feel confident saying this is because sometimes I am in that exact same position that you are in right now. For me, there have been a couple of times where I have felt lost and unmotivated. Fortunately, I have always had people around me including my family, friends and support team who have guided me towards pursuing my dreams.

With saying this, I understand that you might be thinking that you don’t have this support in your life. If this is you, I encourage you to really think about the people who really love and support you through your bad days. Who are the people that you spend most of the time with? And most importantly who are the people who brighten up your day and back you up with whatever you’re going through?

After asking yourself these questions you will probably identify who in your life is 100% by your side and lifting you up. Once you have decided who these people are, it’s time to focus on their interests, skills and most importantly what

they can really bring into your life. Personally, this mainly has appeared in my relationships with my amazing care team. With keeping in mind that I need to be stable about my own aspirations, goals and independence I have also tried to encourage my support workers to bring their own skills, passions, ideas and interests to our working relationship.

I have found that by doing this in my own relationships with my support workers that I have now really bonded with my team, as well as giving me heaps of incredible experiences. These experiences have stretched from doing iFly multiple times, riding in a racecar and adventuring to multiple cafés which all has led me to starting my own blog and company called On Our Own Tracks. The best part about these relationships with my support workers is that these experiences have significantly improved my self-confidence and worth.

So, I definitely recommend that you start thinking about what interests, passions and ideas your support workers have to offer and see how it could transform your life.

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