Oh my yes!! I hated service agreements because they seemed so stupid. So I was super resistant to them. Overall, they end for me because 99% of the time the worker/agency has broken the agreement outright (and often the law with it). But what I’ve learnt is, that for my OWN sanity, containment and later on, any excess guilt about taking a stand is helped immensely by service agreements. I’m still not good at them but not because I don’t like them anymore just because things have become out of control for me and I haven’t been able to write them out (they’re on the list). I would add (now), also when a service presents you with one, you actually don’t automatically have to accept their terms! You can negotiate and amend it as needed. For me this is imperative around expectations for communications with health professionals (usually I communicate and they don’t thinking it’s entirely acceptable to not do something they said they would for months on end and not advise me)….. so, amend and put it in. They may not like it, but it’s valuable.
Oh my yes!! I hated service agreements because they seemed so stupid. So I was super resistant to them. Overall, they end for me because 99% of the time the worker/agency has broken the agreement outright (and often the law with it). But what I’ve learnt is, that for my OWN sanity, containment and later on, any excess guilt about taking a stand is helped immensely by service agreements. I’m still not good at them but not because I don’t like them anymore just because things have become out of control for me and I haven’t been able to write them out (they’re on the list). I would add (now), also when a service presents you with one, you actually don’t automatically have to accept their terms! You can negotiate and amend it as needed. For me this is imperative around expectations for communications with health professionals (usually I communicate and they don’t thinking it’s entirely acceptable to not do something they said they would for months on end and not advise me)….. so, amend and put it in. They may not like it, but it’s valuable.
100% this was me too. I was like ‘nah contracts are overkill blah blah blah… it’s cool’
Until one day it wasn’t.
The benefits of hindsight and experience 🤌🏼
I see it as short term pain for long term GAIN. Get it right from the beginning 👌