Direct Care Workforce

Health care experts from diverse fields give their opinions in this survey. The 196 leaders identified the most pressing long-term care (LTC) issues as development of the workforce, improving quality, and securing financing. 76% believe policymakers must urgently deal with the challenge of forming a sufficient supply of home and community-based services. Other themes dealt with include insurance, financial responsibility, a Medicare LTC benefit, and regulatory action.

Thanks to the steadily increasing demand for home care, the second fastest-growing occupation in the country is that of personal and home care aides (PHCAs). Yet PHCA wages - which were low to begin with - are failing to keep up with inflation nationwide. A new publication looks at the decline in inflation-adjusted wages. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it charts the wages received by personal and home care aides in all 50 states and the nation over a seven-year period.

Are you looking for an example of how one state is helping connect consumers to workers? Are you looking for a personal care attendant? Are you seeking employment as a personal care attendant? This website helps Direct Service Workers find employment allowing them uploading their application; consumers can search a database of available workers. Visitors can also find tips for hiring workers, tax information, and answers to other frequently asked questions.

This quality improvement project was developed and implemented at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. The primary purpose of the Collaborative was to enhance quality of work life for home health aides while improving outcomes for home health patients. The Final Report examines three areas: patient outcomes; patient service use; aide job perceptions & retention. The Implementation Manual emerged out of the lessons learned from an evaluation of the agency-wide spread of tools and strategies.

Watch Danielle, Alexander, Valeska, and Santara share strategies they used as students with disabilities to successfully graduate from college and get jobs. They discuss their struggles with self-reporting their physical or mental disabilities and negotiating accommodations in school and at work. DVDs are available upon request.

This guide identifies special skills needed specifically in the care for patients with dementia. The document is organized by competency areas, allowing direct care workers or trainers to focus on areas of improvement. Additional resources are also listed by competency areas as well as in alphabetical order and are complemented by a glossary and notes for trainers and supervisors.

This resource presents ten key facts showing the economic and health insecurity of the direct care workforce. It can be used to advocate for improved public policies and increase public awareness of the needs and importance of caregivers. The figures presented also illustrate the linkage between quality of care available to the growing population of older Americans, recruitment and retention of workers, and wage and benefits levels.

RE-AIM, a framework for program developers, planners, and evaluators to use to translate research into practices and policies that maintain the health and quality of life of caregivers. This monograph argues that this issue should be a public health policy priority, summarizes RE-AIM, provides policy and program scenarios for using the framework, and list resources and tools. The report is available in six parts here or as one document from the website.

Agencies or programs can use this worksheet to generate and understand employee metrics related to retention, pay, services rendered, and marketing expenditures. These can help identify strengths and challenges of the agencies’ workforce structure.

Watch these videos to hear first-hand from direct-care workers about the services they provide. They share their thoughts on why they do this work, how they are viewed by families, friends, and service recipients, and how they deal with challenges such as discrimination and disrespect. They also provide advice on how to improve the field. The videos are available free at this website or can be ordered as a DVD or VHS with a discussion guide included.