Guidance for PDA people in finding safe and appropriate support

Ed Archer, PDA Society CEO hosts this event and is joined by members of the Safe PDA Practice Panel. 

In 2023 the PDA Society volunteered to coordinate a Safe PDA Practice Panel. This panel is made up of representatives from the PDA community who have come together and created guidance for everyone in the community, identifying how we can all play our part in making our community safer. 

This Q&A introduces this guidance and discusses how it was co-produced by PDA adults, professionals and carers of PDA people, with the support of the PDA Society. 

The guidance aims to help PDA people find safe & appropriate support. As a community that’s misunderstood, PDA people struggle to find helpful and appropriate services. This can make PDA people vulnerable to taking up services that might not be helpful (for example, because PDA isn’t understood, or because the provider’s understanding isn’t backed up with professional expertise and/or boundaries). We hope this resource will help our community identify safe practice and know what to do if services seem unsafe. 

Here you can get access to a recording of our Q&A Live session which was held on 20th November 2023.