One of the best ways to become empowered is to get informed. When you’re informed about what’s happening in your state and across the direct care profession, you are better able to take action and have a voice in the decision-making process. I can’t tell you enough how important it is for you to get involved and speak out – you are not alone. There are over 3 million direct care workers in this country and over one million new positions are needed by 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to PHI, direct care workers in the U.S. will outnumber teachers from kindergarten through high school (3.9 million) and registered nurses (3.2 million) by 2018. In Pennsylvania alone, an additional 56,000 direct care workers will be desperately needed in the next five years. These facts are stunning and should encourage you to have a role in the movement for change.
This week, I wanted to call your attention to a few headlines. Continue reading »
The following is a guest post from Rebecca Livesay, Program Associate – Communications and Outreach for NCCNHR: The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.
NCCNHR, the Pioneer Network, ombudsmen programs, citizen advocacy groups, and others around the country are working to spread culture change principles and practices in our nation’s nursing homes. These principles are aimed at improving quality of life and care for residents by making nursing homes into true homes, not the medical-model institutions they too often are, with inflexible management hierarchies that put residents on the bottom of the pyramid.
To accomplish that goal, we must create a new role for direct care workers, valuing their work and relationships with residents and giving them more autonomy and decision-making power so they can deliver the individualized, “person-centered” care residents want and need. The traditional task-focused, almost assembly-line role assigned to nursing assistants in nursing homes actually gets in the way of delivering good care, forcing workers to do things like wake people up way to early to prepare them for meals or bathe them when they don’t want to be bathed. Continue reading »
We’re starting to coagulate as a direct care worker movement, and it’s more important than ever that we unite to get things done. This is an exciting time, but it calls for more strategic thinking.
Over the past year or two, I’ve been in many situations when direct care workers were connecting with each other. This can be incredibly inspiring. Many of us are compassionate people who are drawn to this kind of service work because we want to put our hearts into nurturing and supporting others. At direct care worker gatherings, I have watched us uplift, encourage and comfort one another, creating a spirit of loyalty and kindness and mutual respect. This is when we’re at our finest. But like anything, there are two sides. There are times when we’re at our best, and times when we’re at our worst. And because we’re at such a critical point in time, I wanted to offer some reflection and advice on focusing on our best selves. Continue reading »
We direct care workers are a very important and powerful group of individuals. At times, we actually hold the very power of life and death in our hands. Especially if we are CPR-certified or have some advanced training, we can perform interventions that make a profound, life-sustaining difference in a matter of moments.
And those skills, I’ve learned, apply to our own lives as well as our work.
When I was challenged, many years ago, with assisting my mother in her last days, I had no CNA training or experience. I had no idea how to help my mother or make her comfortable and myself safe, so we both suffered.
As a result of that experience, I became a professional direct care worker. I soon acquired a new set of skills, like how to take someone’s blood pressure and recognize its danger signs, how to measure a pulse or respiration rate and know what to make of the results, and how to position a bed-bound person. I also learned about things like the need for special diets and the importance of proper hydration – all important skills and knowledge for helping to maintain a person’s life.
A few years ago, I was called on that training for a purpose I had never anticipated: Caring for my wife during what became a long battle with cancer. In caring for her, I found that my direct care worker training and experience made me a much better caregiver, but it also brought me face to face with a terrible choice. Continue reading »
Is health care reform dead?
I can see why some people might think so. The Election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts ended the Democrats’ 60-40 “filibuster proof” majority in the Senate, which means at least one Republican must vote with the Democrats in order for the Senate to overcome delay tactics by the bill’s opposition.
Although the Democrats are unlikely to find that one Republican vote, health care reform is still alive. Since the Senate has already passed a health care reform bill, the House of Representatives could pass the Senate bill and incorporate elements of the House reform bill through a process called budget reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority vote and limits the number of hours of debate.
How health care reform impacts direct care workers
If uninsured direct care workers obtain coverage at the same rate as the entire uninsured population, the Senate bill would ensure coverage for hundreds of thousands of uninsured direct care workers. This is a very conservative estimate and the number of uninsured direct care workers would likely be higher as a result of some workers being covered under the Medicaid expansion and other subsidies for low- and middle-income families. In addition to covering many of the uninsured, these subsidies will relieve some of the financial pressures caused by health care costs for many direct care workers and their families.
What’s next?
House and Senate Democrats are seeking agreement on a reconciliation bill. If they succeed in doing that, the House will likely pass the Senate Health Care Reform bill and then pass the reconciliation measures. If these negotiations fail, I would like to think that the House would pass the Senate bill anyway – but it is not clear whether House Democrats will try to pursue this option.
On a recent trip to Maine, I sat down with Representative Matthew Peterson of District 92 to discuss his work on behalf of direct care workers in the state. He has worked in direct care for years, and is currently an Independent Living Specialist at Alpha One, a center for independent living. As an elected official, Matthew is able to advocate for change in direct care and believes it is an essential and valuable workforce. It is inspiring and encouraging – Matthew has linked his personal passion and commitment to independent living to advocating the need for a well-trained, respected and well-paid direct care workforce. Watch the brief interview I was able to record with Matthew, below.
Imagine if more disability leaders and independent living advocates joined the Direct Care Alliance and made their voices heard on the issues that matter. What if, like Matthew, you could advance change in your community, your state, and eventually, across the country? Matthew shows that we can be heard. More importantly, Matthew shows that independent living and well trained, respected, well paid direct care workers are essential to autonmy and quality of services and supports for people living with disabilities. Most of the issues Matthew discussed in the video apply to us all. There are more than 22,000 direct care workers in Maine, and despite the fiscal crisis Matthew has kept issues like livable wage and appropriate titles on the docket. He believes that there is no better advocate than the workers and consumers, and I couldn’t agree more.
Remember – we don’t have to be elected officials to have an impact. By being involved with the Direct Care Alliance and sharing your passion with others, you can advance change. I hope you’ll continue working with me and with your colleagues across the country to make your voices heard.
A group of Pennsylvanians is marching the 135 miles from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., over the next week. They are going to call on Congress to support health care reform, and they want you to join them.
It may be a little late to join the march from start to finish, since it starts on February 17, but the leaders of Melanie’s March are also looking for people to join them at events along the way in cities like Newark, Wilmington, and Baltimore; donate to support the cause; or march the last mile with them to Capitol Hill. Continue reading »
The Washington state legislature is finally starting to support the work we home care workers and our allies have been doing to establish a professional career path for direct care workers in long-term care. On Saturday, a bill to allow home care workers to more easily become nursing assistants was passed out of committee. It will soon be voted on by the state Senate.
The House bill, HB 2766, and the Senate’s, SB 6582, are nearly identical. A third bill, SB 6662, is slightly different and more inclusive of other types of workers. None of the three have funding attached, so they will only be effective if my union, SEIU 775, can negotiate money for our joint Training Trust.
The cynical part of me says it’s about time the legislature recognized the work we home care aides have been doing to improve the quality of care we provide, but the optimistic part is happy for this good news. Continue reading »
A scholarship for caregivers will be awarded this spring to a professional caregiver for seniors or adults with disabilities in Vermont. The first annual Linda Andersen Caregiver Scholarship, named in honor of a long-time caregiver who passed away suddenly last year, is being presented by Armistead Caregiver Services in conjunction with the Community of Vermont Elders (COVE).
“We want to honor Linda’s dedication to seniors, her teammates and Armistead with this $1,000 scholarship. We also want to honor caregiving as a career by making access to education and training a little easier,” says Rachel Lee Cummings, President of Armistead. COVE will administer the scholarship, collecting and reviewing applications and making the award decision.
Applicants must have at least two years of caregiving experience, be at least 18 years old, and be a legal resident of Vermont. The winner must apply the money toward education or training related to the caregiver field, such as conflict management, gerontology, psychology, nursing, or medical school.
Well, our report is complete, but it has not yet been presented to the Legislature.
As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, I am part of a team that was appointed by the state of Maine to recommend ways that the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee could streamline long-term care service delivery, address equalities in the services provided, and hopefully gain some cost savings, which can be passed on to workers in the form of livable wages and benefits such as paid time off and health care coverage. We finished our work in early January, and the report was supposed to be released later that month.
But I just learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has put it on the back burner instead. Continue reading »
