Using Recovery Act Funds to Improve Direct Care Jobs and the Quality of Direct Care Services (PDF)
A new Direct Care Alliance policy brief helps direct care worker advocates, employers, educators, researchers and others make the case for investing part of the federal funding available through the Recovery Act in the direct care workforce.
DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega calls this window of opportunity “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
But that window will close in just a few weeks, once all the funds have been allocated. ”Funds made available through the fiscal stimulus can do great things, but direct care advocates need to move quickly to figure out what they can use–and how. This brief offers them a terrific road map,” says labor economist Nancy Folbre, a member of the editorial committee that produced the brief.
Vega held a conference call this month with leaders of state direct care worker associations to go over a draft of the brief and discuss ways they could use it. “Nearly a trillion dollars is being sent to states by the federal government with the express purpose of stimulating the economy and building our infrastructure so more Americans join the middle class,” she says. “Let’s make sure we don’t use these funds for Band-Aid solutions, but instead for systems change programs that can help renew our economy by improving these crucial and fast-growing jobs.”
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