This essay is about personal assistance for persons with considerable intellectual disabilities.

The purpose with the study is: to examine personal assistance for individuals, who can`t speak

for themselves, to examine how the individuals can determine and get influence into their

assistance and how they can get help with it, to examine the role of an representative in

relation to the serviceuser´s assistance and examine if there are factors of gender in the

interviews.

The chosen method is qualitative interviews.

The interviews has been analysed through earlier research about personal assistance and

theoretical perspectives like: influence, integration and citizenship and discussed through

perspectives of social psychology.

The main conclusions are: the influence the serviceusers can have is through persons who

know them very well, the role of the representatives are indistinct, the serviceusers can´t

determine their assistance themselves and need help with it from relatives, representatives,

personal assistants and managers, the persons who know the serviceuser intimately are best to

transform the needs to assistance. The factors of gender, are that there are more men as

personal assistants than in the care of elderly, and the representatives are mostly men. The

personal assistants appreciates the time they have for the serviceuser, the work can be lonely

and demanding.