Both sides of the fence

Well this week i`ve heard views from both sides of the fence !!
I had brunch at the beginning of the week with two friends ,one who`s son left education this year and the other who`s son is on the transition journey.
All though my friends son`s care package has now "settled Down " and she is some what happier at the moment, she said how it had been the worst 12 months of her life .. the stress and tribulations that the whole process had caused her and her family whilst caring for a severely disabled child was immeasurable.
My other friend is just embarking on the Transition journey and even though already only 2 years in is finding the whole process stressful on the whole family.
The one thing they both have in common is that they are finding that using Direct Payments gives them such flexibility in how and when they arrange for personal assistants to come into the home and share some of the day -to-day care routine.But both find this has good and bad points with relation to them being an employer and responsibilities that this entails like hire and firing staff ,the paper work side of wages and time sheets..so you need to be able to do simple book keeping skills so this may not suit everyone , but it is my understanding that your local council or disability living centre would be able to help with this.
Then later in the week I met up with an employee of the councils education department, and was pleased to hear from her that things are better than they have been in previous years and that Transition is an area that the authorities are trying hard to address ,so in these times of small budgets and cut backs this is encouraging.