PHI and partners in three states announced Tuesday the launch of a multi-year initiative that aims to improve jobs for direct care workers, particularly those who struggle financially and contribute to high turnover in the industry.
The “Essential Jobs, Essential Care” advocacy campaign will serve Michigan, New Mexico, and North Carolina. It will focus on three major solutions: Increasing wages and reimbursement rates, promoting workforce innovations and improving data collection.
The three coalitions participating in this initiative are IMPART Alliance in Michigan, the New Mexico Caregivers Coalition, and the North Carolina Coalition on Aging.
“More than ever, as COVID-19 has emphasized, direct care workers are critical to the lives of older adults and people with disabilities, and states should ensure that these workers are fully supported through high-quality jobs,” said Jodi M. Sturgeon, president of PHI, a national organization widely considered the leading expert on the direct care workforce.
PHI said many of the nation’s 4.6 million direct care workers struggle with a range of economic barriers that force workers into poverty and drive many of them out of this sector.
About half of home care workers live in low-income households and more than half rely on some form of public assistance.
The campaign seeks to increase state funding and wages in the sector; invest in workforce innovations such as training and advanced roles; and improve workforce data to help states identify shortages and track urgent trends.
PHI and the three coalitions will identify racial justice strategies that “center and uplift women, people of color, and immigrants throughout the life of the initiative.”
Robert Espinoza, vice president of policy at PHI, said using a statewide approach to raise hourly wages or strengthen training requirements makes sense in the absence of strong federal initiatives or policies.
Since 2003, at least 16 states have created workgroups to develop statewide reports and recommendations for transforming the direct care job with a primary focus on increasing compensation, improving training, boosting public awareness, developing career advancement opportunities, and establishing workforce data systems.
“States are increasingly crafting home-grown solutions to transform a troubled long-term care sector that isn’t meeting the full needs of either workers or consumers,” Espinoza said. “Now is the time to bolster a national, state-by-state political movement in support of direct care workers and the people they support.”
This article originally appeared on McKnight's Senior Living
