Renee Tillman and Roy Gedat
It’s always a treat to meet the long-term care providers, advocates and other pioneers at the Pioneer Network’s annual conferences, who “get it” about the need to put the “home” back in “nursing home” – and the importance of direct care workers. So I was glad to be invited to host a session at their 9th national conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, last month. CNA Renee Tillman, the founder and leader of the Texas Association for Nursing Assistants, met me there.
The focus of the conference was Coming together-Creating Community, and the conference organizers and presenters included direct care workers and talk about direct care worker issues throughout. It was great to be about to talk about direct care work and workers with leaders of nursing homes and other residential care facilities that are working hard to make their facilities into truly welcoming, empowering, respectful places to live and work.
I was also glad to see how many people showed up for my workshop on Developing Direct-Care Worker Leaders as Advocacy Partners. I talked about the impact activists and involved direct care staff are having, their roles in coalitions, strategies for developing meaningful partnerships between employers, workers, consumers, and advocates, and gave an overview of the issues the DCA and our National Direct Care Partnership are advocating for. Then I opened it up for a Q&A session and fielded some smart, thoughtful questions.
Part of what we do at the DCA is explain to employers how empowering direct care staff actually improve care quality and consumer and family satisfaction. That can be kind of a hard sell, but most of the employers in the Pioneer Network don’t need any convincing. A lot of them are well on the path to giving direct care workers the autonomy, decision-making power, and respect they need to do the job right.
The Pioneer Network’s commitment to culture change fits perfectly with the DCA’s goal of building an empowered workforce of advocates. I’m grateful for the chance to meet old friends and allies and make some new ones at their conference this year.
Roy G Gedat, MSW
National Advocacy Director
Direct Care Alliance
