Reports

Assessing the well-being of workers hired under consumer direction and addressing their concerns is critical, because the model is sustainable only if workers are satisfied. While care recipients who manage their own care appear to be much more satisfied than others, the primary reason given for dropping out is difficulty finding or keeping a worker. Moreover, tapping consumers’ family members and friends as additional sources of labor could help solve the serious worker shortage.

Family to Family Centers provide information and other supports both to family members and to professionals who serve children and youth with special health care needs. This topic paper highlights innovative strategies developed by individual Family to Family Centers to develop partnerships to expand their reach, to enhance outreach to parents, to serve a culturally diverse clientele, to help youth prepare for transition, and to ensure organizational sustainability.

This report tracks the work of 8 Passport caseworkers from 3 different service organizations. Caseworkers noted that clients experienced mixed feelings about the program; they were excited at the prospect of transitioning into the community but also frustrated at the length of time it took to complete the transition. Throughout the survey period, the biggest success experienced by caseworkers was finalizing a client’s housing and assisting them in moving out of a nursing home.

This report offers the findings of an outreach project conducted with direct-care employers and employees in Maine to help connect them with a new health insurance product called DirigoChoice. The research suggest that “states experimenting with innovative health coverage plans will need to address major challenges -- such as the part-time nature of direct-care work, low wages, and low reimbursement rates -- to ensure coverage for these critical health care workers.”

What incentives help encourage in-home supportive services workers to remain in caregiving? A Connecticut College research team explores this question by surveying 2,200 workers. \"Flexibility and wages matter,\" the researchers note, \"research clearly shows that giving workers $10/hr plus access to decent benefits significantly increases the supply and retention rate of home care workers, making it possible for consumers to find good caregivers.\" The executive summary offers further results.

As the number of those needing care at home continues to grow, it is becoming more difficult to find workers. One solution is to rely on consumer-directed services, in which clients hire friends and family as paid caregivers (whom we call “related caregivers”). This study explored the experiences of related caregivers, most of which had not considered direct-care work if a loved one had not needed them and sought to understand who might represent potential home care workers in the future.

AARP has developed a two page fact sheet that outlines the definitions, need, funding and expansion options for home and community based services.

What are the specialized needs of seniors, people with disabilities and individuals with mental illness during emergencies? This brief describes how ADRCs can assist consumers before, during and after crisis situations. Although numerous federal, state and local agencies are involved in emergency activities, this issue brief focuses on the key roles of ADRCs in emergency planning, response and recovery.

Because effective partnership is a cornerstone of successful ADRC program development and ongoing operations, the Lewin Group has completed several aging and disability case studies on existing successful public-private partnerships. The case studies describe the approach, implementation, and outcomes of each partnership as well as reported “lessons learned.”

Provides practical information on how state agencies can obtain and use the MDS through Data Use Agreements (DUAs) with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Explores the progress states have made in: using the MDS to facilitate nursing facility transition; identifying barriers that remain; and, suggesting recommendations for changes to the MDS to make it more useful for nursing home transition efforts. We examine three uses of the MDS by nursing facility transition program.