Archive for ‘Featured News’

Why I Had to Quit the Home Care Career that I Loved

Posted by Helen Hanson on February 21st, 2012 at 9:26 am | 3 Comments »

: Helen Hanson (L) at her CNA graduation.

I have worked as a caregiver since 2003. The work has been basically the same all these years, but the title keeps changing.

I started out at a home care agency, first as a homemaker and then as a personal support specialist. Next I provided home care to a woman with quadriplegia who directs her own care. I am currently working as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) in a skilled nursing facility, because the work is steadier and the benefits are much better, but if all else were equal I’d go back to home care in a heartbeat.

My experience has made it crystal clear to me why we need to grant home care workers basic labor protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Nearly everyone who needs help with daily activities would rather get it at home than in an institution, right? So why are we making it so hard for home care workers to make a living? Continue reading »

In Their Own Words: CNAs Discuss Their Work in New Journal

Posted by Direct Care Alliance on February 21st, 2012 at 9:24 am | 4 Comments »

The current issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, a new academic journal from Johns Hopkins Press, is built around personal reflections about CNA work from DCA Board Chair Tracy Dudzinski and nine other nursing assistants.

The third and last in a year-long series that also featured testimonials from patients and physicians, the issue concludes its section on nursing assistant work with two scholarly commentaries on the testimonials.

The nursing assistant stories cover a broad range of concerns, experiences, observations, and sensibilities, from Tracy’s testimonial, which was adapted from a speech she delivered at an Institute of Medicine symposium, to a letter from retired nursing assistant Margaret Fletcher, who offered life lessons she has gleaned over the years. Genevieve (Jeni) Gipson of the National Network of Career Nursing Assistants assisted the editors in putting the symposium together. Continue reading »

Why Minimum Wage and Overtime for Home Care Workers Helps All of Us

Posted by Dennis Fitzgibbons on February 13th, 2012 at 9:16 pm | 5 Comments »

As the executive director of Alpha One, Maine’s Center for Independent Living, and a longtime advocate for people with a disability, I have experienced direct care work as a consumer, an employer, and an advocate. Home care workers play a vital role in allowing people to remain independent, in their own homes, and active in their communities, and they deserve the basic labor protections guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

All of us who live with a disability want to go on with our lives as we see fit to the greatest extent possible. While we may solicit support from families and friends, we often need professional direct care workers to assist us as well. When we enlist their services, we expect the highest quality possible, and we owe them something in return. Continue reading »

My Group Home Away from Home

Posted by Dorcas Sumba on February 13th, 2012 at 9:13 pm | 2 Comments »

Dorcas Sumba

I came to this country in 2000 from Nairobi, Kenya, with my then-husband, who went to graduate school at the University of Arizona. I’ve been here in Tucson ever since.

I’ve worked at the same place ever since I arrived, too. It’s a small group home for people with developmental disabilities. I applied for a job there when I first got here because some people we met here who were also from Kenya said it was a good place to work. I started as a direct care worker, and after six years I was promoted to assistant house manager. I am also the lead staff and medical advocate for the home. I still do direct care work, but now I also supervise other direct care workers part of the time. Continue reading »

DCA Members, Allies Comment on Proposed Rule

Posted by Direct Care Alliance on February 7th, 2012 at 1:55 am | No Comments »

Now that we’re about two-thirds of the way through the public comment period on the proposed rule to extend Fair Labor Standards Act protections to home care workers, the comments are beginning to give a sense of the range and sheer number of home care stakeholders who support the rule–and the depth of their passion about this issue.

Here’s a sampling of the inspirational comments submitted so far by DCA members and allies. If you’ve already submitted yours, thank you for helping support this important cause. If you haven’t yet found the time, please download our comment submission guidelines and send yours in soon.

Judy Clinco

Judy Clinco, home care agency owner

As the owner of a 30-year-old home care company that employees Direct Care Workers, I am fully supportive of this workforce being protected by the Fair Wage Labor Law. Unless this workforce is guaranteed minimum hourly wage and over time it will be impossible to recruit compassionate individuals who will work long term in this sector. Our aging society not only needs trained, compassionate individuals, but the continuity of having there services and care be provided by the same caregiver.

Making the Invisible Visible

Posted by Leonila Vega on February 7th, 2012 at 1:45 am | 20 Comments »

Leonila Vega

Several years ago, my colleague Roy Gedat and I decided to start what is now this blog our e-newsletter, The Direct Care News. We saw a large void, in that there was no news being published by workers themselves about their work and barriers. We wanted the silenced voices of direct care workers to come through in our reports, commentary, and poetry.

In other words, we didn’t want a glossy marketing tool packed with expert opinions. We wanted this “invisible” workforce to become visible, speaking directly to us in their own voices, telling us about their day-to-day lives and concerns, giving us a feel for the special people they are. Continue reading »

What Caring for Friends Taught Me About Direct Care Workers

Posted by Meriam Jawhar on January 31st, 2012 at 10:41 am | 1 Comment »

Meriam Jawhar

As an advocate for people with disabilities, I’ve always realized that they need certain supports. But becoming a caregiver for two of my friends gave me a whole new awareness of just how much professional caregivers really do, and the huge responsibility they have for another person’s life.

The first time I was put into the role of caregiver was in 2007. A close friend of mine, my compadre and my son’s godfather, had to go in for heart surgery. He was 78 and not very healthy physically, but mentally he was fine. He went into the hospital one way and 48 hours late he came out another: he had dementia as a result of the surgery.

Being the advocate that I am, I got him on a disabled and elderly waiver within six weeks. That provided 35 hours of home health attendant care, but I had to do the weekends and split overnights with some other friends of mine. I did that for eight months. Continue reading »

An Honest Day’s Work Deserves Fair Pay

Posted by Mohan Varghese on January 29th, 2012 at 11:48 am | 5 Comments »

A home care workers explains why we need to enact the proposed home care rule

Mohan Varghese

It is only just to give home health care workers the basic rights that are guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act. If you look at any other job that’s non-salaried, they have those rights. If you work at a fast food place flipping burgers, you’re getting all those requirements met, but if you are providing home care you don’t.

I have worked three-plus years at a nursing home as a certified nurse aide and three years as a home health aide caring for a spinal cord injury patient. I do all the things in home care that I did in the nursing home and more. Some of the extras are simple tasks like cleaning and cooking. Others are much complex medical tasks that were done by licensed nurses in the nursing home, like urinary catheterization and administration of shots and other medications. Continue reading »

Home Care Workers Talk About the Proposed Rule

Posted by Direct Care Alliance on January 24th, 2012 at 10:27 am | 5 Comments »

We asked some of our home care worker members and allies how they felt about the proposed rule to extend Fair Labor Standards Act protections to home care workers. Here’s what they said:

Carolyn Gay

Carolyn Gay, CNA and home care worker

I have been a CNA since 1992, working in private duty with some of the most wonderful patients and families. I am on Social Security now, but I continue to work as a CNA to supplement my income and because I love my patients.

As a CNA, I am a trained professional. I am required by law to be certified and to maintain my skills. I incur the expenses for that training, yet I do not get paid for my travel time, nor am I assured minimum wage. If I worked more than 40 hours a week, I would not get time and a half for that extra time.

As the support system for our patients, their families, the RNs and the doctors, we have earned the right to a living wage. Fast food workers are guaranteed minimum wage and overtime pay, but we caregivers are not. Continue reading »

Celebrating Dr. King’s Legacy

Posted by Direct Care Alliance on January 17th, 2012 at 10:42 am | No Comments »

As Martin Luther King. Jr. Day approached, we here at the Direct Care Alliance found ourselves reflecting on Dr. King’s influence on our lives and work and wondering what he would think about today’s campaign for better jobs for direct care workers. We asked some of our current and past board members to share their thoughts about that.

Here’s what they had to say:

Economic justice for today’s version of “the help”

Almost 50 years ago, when Dr. King went to the Washington Mall with hundreds of thousands of people, there were thousands of domestic workers in the crowd. The domestic worker of the 1950s and ‘60s could be compared to the home care worker of today. They did the cooking and cleaning. They cared for the babies. They cared for the owners of the house when they became sick. And most of them—about 99 percent of them in the South—were African American.

These workers were so closely involved with the lives of the families they worked for that they weren’t even called workers. They were called “the help.” They didn’t get a salary. They just took whatever the owner of the house decided they deserved for the time they worked—and they worked from sunup to sundown. That same way of thinking led to the so-called “companionship exemption” that denies us home care workers the right to Fair Labor Standards Act protections.