Direct Care Workforce

From the spring of 2004 through January 2005, a series of surveys was administered to long term care workers (DCWs) and their employers in the tri-county area of Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties of Michigan. The survey was designed to establish a baseline profile of the area workforce and identify potential areas for advocacy on behalf of the workforce, especially in the areas of recruitment, training and retention. This report contains survey questions and results.

Rutgers/NASHP Community Living Exchange sponsored a one-day meeting of the Vermont and Maine direct support worker associations. The purpose of the event was to provide a leadership development opportunity for the staff and volunteer members of the two association's board of directors. Sixteen people attended the meeting including nine direct support workers.

The purpose of this 2001 Real Choice System Change grant project is to review personal assistance services policies across departments and programs to identify unnecessary inconsistencies and opportunities to maximize consumer choice and control. This comparative analysis identifies opportunities for increasing consumer choice and control across Maine’s personal assistance services (PAS) program and offers additional findings and recommendations.

As the nation moves toward a recovery-oriented, consumer-and family-driven mental health system, it is vital for all of us to stay involved, informed, and invested in the challenging process at hand. As a periodic briefing, Mental Health Transformation Trends is an important tool to keep our partners and ourselves up to date on emerging issues, practices, and trends in transformation. The premiere issue contains state profiles, partner spotlights, news and resources

The Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is an employment program for people with disabilities who are interested in going to work. The quarterly newsletter covers marketplace news, opportunities and experiences. The Summer 2005 issue details National Alliance Updates and Information, Sustainability Champions and Ticket to Work Funding, Partnership-Building Resources, a Conference Calendar and a list of recently approved Employment Networks (ENs).

The Ticket to Work Program is a Social Security Administration employment and healthcare initiative for Social Security Beneficiaries who want to work. The goal is to increase opportunities and choices for disability beneficiaries to find employment, vocational rehabilitation, and other support services through a pool of providers known as Employment Networks (ENs). If your organization is interested you can download the Application and RFP. This is a non-competitive, open-ended award process.

This brochure was developed by the Connecticut CPASS grant to promote the Rewarding Choice program, which was developed to match Personal Assistants with individuals who need assistance.

This fact sheet gives an overview of the direct-care workforce describing job titles, responsibilities, worker demographics, wages, benefits, and the growing demand for workers. These workers go by many names, but they fall into three main occupational categories: nursing assistants (usually known as certified nursing assistants or CNAs), home health aides, and personal and home care aides. View this overview for statistics and data.

This report assesses the experiences of personal assistance workers in the first Cash and Counseling demonstration project, Arkansas’ IndependentChoices. It describes the types and amount of care that paid workers provide, the training and supervision they receive, their working conditions, and their well-being. It also looks at how the worker-consumer relationship affects key outcomes, comparing the experiences of agency workers to those of directly hired workers.

A wage pass-through is an additional allocation of funds provided through Medicaid reimbursement for the express purpose of increasing compensation for direct-care workers. Twenty-one states have implemented these programs in expectation that doing so will help address the worker shortage. The purpose of this issue brief is to: describe the structure in selected states; summarize what is known about the impact of these programs on recruitment and retention; and identify key design elements.