Archive for ‘Wisconsin’

To Stay or Not to Stay? When Will We Ever Get Ahead?

Posted by on November 15th, 2010 at 11:42 am | 5 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

I have been a direct care worker since 1996. I love my profession and do not want to leave it, but the system is not making it easy to stay.

My family has relied on the Wisconsin health insurance plan for some years now.  I got my start in long-term care at a nursing home.  I qualified for the health insurance, which was employer sponsored through the union.  It was good insurance. I went from the nursing home to home care organization that did not offer health insurance, but my family qualified for Wisconsin’s Medicaid program, Badger Care, which covered all our needs for a relatively low monthly fee.  From there I moved to the worker-owned home care agency where I’ve been for the last six years. Cooperative Care offers health insurance, it covers 70% of the monthly premium and I couldn’t afford the other 30%. Fortunately we still qualified for Badger Care.

We were very grateful for the coverage because my husband and two of our four children are Type 1 insulin- dependent diabetics.  If we hadn’t had Badger Care, I don’t know what we would have done.

But I am about to find out. Continue reading »

Direct Care Workers & Allies Advocating Together: Voices Institute model trains leaders in Wisconsin

Posted by on October 25th, 2010 at 1:43 pm | 1 Comment »

This is a guest post from John Shaw, Community Outreach/Advocacy at the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities.

This year, the Direct Care Alliance’s Voices Institute, the Wisconsin Board for People with Disabilities (BPDD), and the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance launched an exciting new initiative called Advocacy Voices Together – a unique training program for people who want to improve the lives of direct care workers and the people they support.

An inspiration for this project, the Voices Institute gathers direct care workers from across the country to learn leadership and advocacy skills.  BPDD and WIDCA recognized a need in the community to develop these skills in direct care allies, uniting stakeholders to call for change.  With this in mind, the three organizations launched Advocacy Voices Together to do just that.

Anne Rabin (right) and daughter Emily create an action plan for continuing to advocate along with a family member living with disabilities.

During the training event, direct care workers and people who receive long-term care services  worked together in teams to learn advocacy and leadership skills.  The group learned how to build support for better wages, benefits and working conditions for workers, and how to advocate for family members and self advocates with disabilities. The training incorporated the core curriculum of DCA’s Voices Institute, along with key principles from disability community self advocacy.

“This is another huge milestone for the Voices Institute,” said Tracy Dudzinksi, Vice Chair of the DCA Board of Directors, Chair of the Board for the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance, and President of the Board for Cooperative Care in Wisconsin. Continue reading »

Telling My Story to All Who Will Listen: Wisconsinites take DC

Posted by on June 28th, 2010 at 11:54 am | 1 Comment »

Tracy Dudzinski

On June 15, 2010, I was fortunate to be able to travel to Capitol Hill again. I was part of a delegation from Wisconsin who visited with Senator Herb Kohl’s office. There were six of us (see photo below), including myself, Susan Rosa (a family caregiver), Tracy Schroepfer (a geriatric social worker), Sharon Roth Maguire (a geriatric nurse practitioner), and Dr. Paul Drinka and Dr. Michael Malone (geriatricians). We were brought together by the Eldercare Workforce Alliance (EWA), founded by Leonila Vega of the Direct Care Alliance and others.

During the visit with Senator Kohl, I explained the importance of the direct care worker training program that was established as part of health care reform and asked that he fight to get money appropriated. I also advocated for training programs for workers. As a supportive home care agency, we have a hard time finding qualified workers. We actually hired a certified nursing assistant who had never given a bath – which we didn’t know before hiring her. We need better training because the specialized needs of consumers are increasing as people live longer.

Senator Kohl seemed surprised to learn that dog groomers and hair stylists have more training than direct care workers. I think that is unacceptable when we are dealing with people’s lives. Continue reading »

Bob Hudek Joins DCA as Voices Institute Director

Posted by on January 15th, 2010 at 5:12 pm | 4 Comments »

Bob Hudek

I am delighted to announce that Bob Hudek has joined our staff as director of the DCA’s Voices Institute.

Bob is highly experienced at both grassroots organizing and training. He has developed and conducted training programs for unions and citizen organizations on effective organizing, building grass roots power, leadership development and coalition-building.

I met Bob when he was running Citizen Action of Wisconsin, which he revitalized through coalition building and grass roots organizing. He has also served as executive director of the Coalition for Consumer Rights and as national field director of Citizen Action and the Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition.

For the past several years, Bob has also been essential to our Voices Institute, which he was instrumental in developing. Continue reading »

Don’t Let Them Forget Why Direct Care Workers Need Health Care Reform

Posted by on January 14th, 2010 at 10:40 am | 5 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

Embarrassed. Less than. Not worthy. Angry. Unimportant.

These are a few of the words that describe how I feel about having to rely on a state-sponsored health insurance plan for my family’s insurance coverage, though I work full time for a home care agency. I just can’t afford my employer’s health insurance plan on a direct care worker’s wages.

If I am helping care for our nation’s most vulnerable, why can’t I afford to buy into my employer’s health insurance plan for my family?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m very grateful for the state-sponsored insurance. I have three insulin-dependent diabetics in my family, so without the help of Wisconsin’s Medicaid plan, we’d have to choose between medication and food or gas. And who knows how we’d pay for doctor visits and hospital stays?

We pay a monthly premium and have co-pays for services, but I can afford BadgerCare’s rates. I just can’t afford my employer’s. That means I’m stuck in a vicious cycle: I can’t afford to get much of a raise, because if I made a little more than I’m making now, we wouldn’t qualify for the state health care plan. I’d have to buy into my employer’s plan, but a few dollars more a week wouldn’t be enough to make it affordable. So I’d be stuck with that awful choice — medicine or food? I might even have to join the millions of people who have gone bankrupt because of high medical bills. Continue reading »

Opportunities for Advocates in Wisconsin

Posted by on January 7th, 2010 at 3:58 pm | No Comments »

 Application form and details

This spring, the DCA’s Voices Institute will introduce a state-level training program for people who want to improve the lives of direct support workers and the people they support. If you’re a direct support worker or a long-term care recipient in Wisconsin who has a passion for that cause, we’d love to see you there!

Advocacy Voices Together is sponsored by the Direct Care Alliance, the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (WBPDD), and the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance (WIDCA). The program teams direct support workers with people who receive long-term care services. Together, they will learn how to build support for better direct care worker wages, benefits and working conditions.  Continue reading »

Direct Care Workers: the Foundation for Community-Based Care

Posted by on October 8th, 2009 at 11:35 am | 1 Comment »
Terry Lynch

Terry Lynch

Wisconsin is one of many states establishing community-based managed care programs for older people and people with disabilities. These programs are gradually supplanting the home and community-based Medicaid waiver programs that have been the primary funding source for state alternatives to nursing home care.

As in other states, there have been long waiting lists for our Medicaid waiver programs. Many people have gone for years before being served. Many others have had no choice but to move to nursing homes, since there are no waiting lists for life in an institution.

Wisconsin is now expanding two managed care programs – Family Care and Partnership – that aim to eliminate waiting lists while helping consumers remain in their homes. Consumers who are Medicaid-eligible and at risk of nursing home placement are entitled to services in one or the other of these programs.

These programs are improving the lives of many consumers and family caregivers, but our economic crisis makes it difficult for Wisconsin to take them statewide. Meanwhile, another less visible crisis, the growing shortage of direct care workers, threatens these programs’ very survival. Continue reading »

Voices Institute Welcomes Another Remarkable Class

Posted by on September 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm | 8 Comments »
Angel Saylor (R) with home care aide Kelvin Jefferson at a DCA focus group

Angel Saylor (R) with home care aide Kelvin Jefferson at a DCA focus group

The Direct Care Alliance’s signature program, the Voices Institute, is about to hold its second National Leadership Program. The week-long retreat is an intensive learning journey, and this year’s class is another remarkable group, which will surely join the pioneers from the VI inaugural class to leave its mark on the direct care worker movement. We are returning to the DeKoven Center, where the roots that were planted at the first Voices Institute National Leadership Program will again thrive.

This year, we are welcoming men and women who care for people of all ages in a variety of settings, including nursing homes, hospice, group homes, day programs, assisted living, and home- and community-based programs. Consistent with the DCA’s objectives to build a broadly inclusive movement of empowered direct care workers, the class of 2009 represents a wide spectrum of direct care workers. Continue reading »

Real Wages Keep Falling for Personal and Home Care Aides

Posted by on September 9th, 2009 at 11:17 am | 1 Comment »

state chartbook coverAs every direct care worker advocate knows, personal and home care aides earn far too little for the important work they do. And now an updated version of PHI’s State Chart Book on Wages for Personal and Home Care Aides (PDF) gives advocates a valuable tool, proving that real wages are actually getting worse.

The chart book analyzes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, adjusting last year’s wages for inflation to see how their earning power compares to average wages in 1999.

Nationwide, these inflation-adjusted rates, which the chartbook calls “real wages,” have decreased by 3 percent over the past nine years, dropping from $7.50 an hour to just $7.31. Real wages increased in more than half the states during that period, but not enough to make up for their decline in the other 21.

Median wages in 2008 ranged from $7.05 an hour in Texas to $12.55 in Alaska in 2008, or real wages of $5.61 to $9.90. “Wages for personal and home care aides are so low,” says PHI Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey, “that about 20 percent of these workers received a raise on July 24 when the minimum wage increased to $7.25/hour.”

The chartbook also compares wages to federal poverty level wages for a one-person household.

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Introducing Voices Institute Trainer and DCW Brenda Nachtway

Posted by on September 8th, 2009 at 11:06 am | No Comments »
Brenda (L) with Jackie Merkel at the 2008 Voices Institute National Leadership Program

Brenda (L) with Jackie Merkel at the 2008 Voices Institute National Leadership Program

 In a few short weeks, the direct care worker movement will grow stronger and more unified when direct care workers come together in Racine, Wisconsin for the Voices Institute‘s second National Leadership Program (NLP).

The workers in this year’s class will share their stories and learn from one another. They will also learn from a training team that includes graduates of last year’s Voices Institute NLP. I’d like to introduce you to one of them, my treasured colleague Brenda Nachtway.

Brenda will be one of the first people that the class members will meet. She will welcome the class as they arrive on Sunday evening and get settled in and coordinate an evening program where the class will get personally acquainted, after long-distance exchanges on web seminars and orientation and community-building conference calls. Since she is one of the most joyful, humorous, and warm people you will ever meet, it is safe to say that the class will find a week-long home away from home in Brenda’s company. Continue reading »

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