Archive for ‘Washington, D.C.’

DCA Publishes Fact Sheets for Direct Care Worker Advocates and their Allies

Posted by on June 25th, 2009 at 10:56 am | No Comments »

A full set of DCA Direct Care Fact Sheets, one for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is now available in the Resources section of our website.

The one-page sheets were created as a resource for direct care worker advocates and their allies, legislators, policymakers, members of the media, and others interested in direct care issues. They include key facts such as:

  •   The number of home health aides, nursing assistants, and personal and home care aides in the state in 2006 and the projected numbers of each in 2016
  •   The average hourly wage for the state’s direct care workers
  •   What percentage of direct care workers in that state or region are without health insurance

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Video Highlights from the DCA’s Trip to DC

Posted by on May 27th, 2009 at 6:21 pm | 1 Comment »

In our effort to tell the story of direct care workers, we did some filming during our April trip to Washington to talk to legislators about direct care worker issues.

Here’s the first one:

HHS Secretary Sebelius: “It is Our Goal to Improve the Attractiveness of Caregiving Jobs”

Posted by on May 27th, 2009 at 2:40 pm | No Comments »
Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen Sebelius

The new head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expresses her appreciation for direct care workers and pledges her determination to improve their jobs in a May 18 letter to the Washington Post.

In her letter, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls direct care workers “the backbone of our long-term care system,” adding: “Their compassion and work is invaluable to individuals, their families and our society.”

“The Department of Health and Human Services is deeply concerned about the needs of long-term care workers and maintaining an adequate and high-quality workforce,” Sebelius writes. “It is our goal to improve the attractiveness of caregiving jobs and reduce worker turnover. Ultimately, this will result in improvements in the quality of life and care of disabled and older Americans.”

The letter was published in response to “Marilyn Daniel’s Reward,” the May 10 cover story of the Washington Post magazine.

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Direct Care Workers Help Get 37 Congressional Signatures on Letter to Labor Secretary Solis

Posted by on May 26th, 2009 at 8:50 pm | 1 Comment »
Jenn Craigue
Jenn Craigue

Last month I visited Washington, DC, along with other members of the Direct Care Alliance board, graduates of the DCA’s first Voices Institute class, and  other DCA staff and allies. We introduced ourselves to legislators and their staff and to asked for two things– and one of them has already happened.

One of our two main “asks” was that the legislators sign a Dear Colleague letter. The DCA worked with the House Labor and Working Families Caucus to circulate the letter, which asked U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to change the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to include home care workers.

The Dear Colleague letter was sponsored by the three co-chairs of the Caucus: Representatives Linda Sánchez, Michael Michaud, and Stephen Lynch. They sent it to their colleagues in the House just before we got there, asking them to sign it. In our visits, we also urged members of Congress to sign. The final letter (PDF) went to Secretary Solis last week.

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Washington Post Cover Story Asks Why Home Care Workers Stay

Posted by on May 11th, 2009 at 11:56 pm | 3 Comments »
Marilyn Daniel (R) helps Classie Morant prepare for her sister's funeral. Ms. Daniel had helped Ms. Morant care for her sister.

Marilyn Daniel (R) helps Classie Morant prepare for her sister's funeral. Ms. Daniel had helped Ms. Morant care for her sister.

“Marilyn Daniel’s Reward,” the cover story of Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, gives readers an up close and personal view of one compassionate home health aide and her work.

Author Paula Span makes clear the skills and sensitivity that make Marilyn Daniel good at her work, as well as the many services she provides. Span also  interviews some of Daniel’s clients, her employer, and a variety of experts and advocates to answer the central question posed in the story’s subhed: “She works long hours for low wages as a home health aide — a job so demanding and underappreciated that others leave in droves. So why hasn’t she?”

DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega amplifies that question with her quote: “You can be a home care worker for 20 or 30 years and never receive a meaningful wage increase, never get a promotion. You could become an expert in working with people with physical disabilities or Alzheimer’s; yet you never receive any recognition for your increased learning and experience.”

Span, who has a book on the subject coming out next month, notes that “finding reliable, compassionate caregivers to help keep seniors in their homes isn’t easy, even in these miserable economic times,” in part because of poor pay and benefits. But her detailed and insightful portrait also makes it clear why caring people like Daniel find home care work so rewarding.

To voice your support for home care workers like Marilyn Daniel, take a moment to visit the DCA’s Legislative Action Center and ask U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to include them in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Holy Cow – I Did It! Testifying at a D.C. Symposium

Posted by on March 13th, 2009 at 3:11 pm | 6 Comments »

Watch part one (above) to hear the first part of Tracy’s testimony, and part two to hear about the changes she would like to see.

What do you do when you get a call from the executive director of the DCA asking you to go to Washington, D.C. to tell the people at an Institute of Medicine symposium what it’s like to be a direct care worker?

You panic for a second. You think: “Why me? What would I say?”

Then you take a deep breath to calm your nerves and think: “Why not me? I am the expert in direct care, and people need to hear the voice of the worker if we are ever going to change things.”

I told Leonila I would be happy to speak to the group. Then I panicked again and waited for a call from Elise, the DCA’s communications director. After our conversation, I felt much better. I went home that evening and wrote out my testimony. (PDF) I worked with Elise and she helped me make it as powerful as I could.

Then we had a call with the people from the Institute of Medicine and I found out that I had to cut parts of my testimony, since it was 20 minutes long and it needed to be closer to 10. (And here I’d thought I wouldn’t have enough to say.)

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