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January 18, 2008
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In This Issue:
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Recent additions
Click here to see what's new in the Clearinghouse.
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Pohlmann Moves On, Wise Moves Up in Maine
The departure of Lisa Pohlmann from the Maine Center for Economic Policy has left the Maine HCHCW campaign with a new leader. Kurt Wise, who recently joined MECEP as its fiscal policy analyst, is the new facilitator of the Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition and co-leader - along with Barbara Asnes of Maine PASA - of the Maine HCHCW campaign.
"The HCHCW campaign is grateful to Lisa for her passion, policy acumen, and effective leadership," said Allison Lee, national campaign manager for HCHCW. Pohlmann was instrumental in raising awareness of direct-care workforce issues among legislators and administrators, helping to move the state toward implementing policies to improve the quality of direct-care jobs. She left MECEP on January 14, after 13 years of service, to become deputy director of the Natural Resource Council of Maine.
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HCHCW Gears Up for 2008 Legislative Sessions
As 2008 begins, so do many state legislative sessions - and the prime focus of many states this year is health care reform. Building on groundwork laid last year, the PHI Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign is working with legislators in the key campaign states of Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
Read about what's in the works.
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If you're reading this in a web browser, return to your e-mail to vote. Votes cast from the browser are not counted.
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In a few years, robots will be able to replace many direct-care workers
Agree: 12%
Disagree: 12%
Strongly disagree: 76%
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Dear Friend,
Viewed from a comfortable distance, working to change laws and other public policies affecting direct-care workers looks like the kind of hard work that requires a lot of patience and an ability to take the long view -- a little like farming. So I admire people like Lisa Pohlmann, who moved on to a new job this week after working on behalf of direct-care workers and other low-wage workers in Maine.
Along with stalwart colleagues like Elise Scala and the folks from Maine PASA -- and with the help of the many legislators and policymakers she worked with over the years -- Lisa planted seeds for change in Maine for more than a dozen years. A lot of those seeds are already bearing fruit, and more will ripen over the years. Thank you, Lisa, for all your hard work in nurturing change over the years.
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Pilot Program Improves Retention in Michigan
A two-year pilot program aimed at improving direct-care worker retention decreased turnover in all participating Michigan companies - in some by more than 20 percent. "We've paid for our participation in this project out of our advertising budget, and given the retention rate we've achieved, it more than pays for itself," noted one employer.
Opportunity Partnership & Empowerment Network (OPEN) was launched in 2004 by the Health Field Collaborative (HFC), a group of retirement communities and other health care employers allied with local workforce development organizations in Kent County, Michigan. OPEN provided direct-care workers with training, opportunities for career advancement, counseling, and access to social services through a joint occupation enhancement coordinator. A report on the project from PHI Michigan outlines its basic components, reviews its outcomes, and identifies critical factors for sustaining the program in the future.
Read more
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Experts Call for Better Caregiver Supports in Massachusetts
"Those providing elder care - whether it is health care, personal care, transportation or housing - are an incredibly important part of the workforce of our society, whether they are paid or unpaid. We need to know who these people are, know exactly what they do, and value them for their efforts to help elders age with dignity," declares a report to the Massachusetts Office of Elder Affairs.
Caring for the Caregivers: Improving Resources for Elder Caregivers in Massachusetts covers highlights and recommendations from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology forum held last January. The forum was part of a long-term investigation into how to better support caregivers and people needing assistance in the state.
Attendees agreed on four key needs:
- better education for families about how better to plan for elder care needs;
- better public education about how to support people who need assistance and their family caregivers;
- new state public policy "to develop first class home care and community-based services and to make them widely available"; and
- putting "a human face" on paid and family care providers to help "increase recognition that this work is a high stress, highly personal, very difficult set of tasks" and "provide the support and resources they need to get the job done."
Two of the group's ten recommendations also concern direct-care workers: "train and certify a geriatric workforce" and "improve conditions of employment for paid caregivers." The latter recommendation calls for providing all home care workers with health insurance, a living wage, and training in basic CPR, safety skills, and "knowledge about the chronic illness that are common among the elderly such as diabetes, dementia and congestive heart failure."
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Home Health Aide Honored in Michigan
"It is difficult to know when or how or where a person will find his or her life's purpose, the thing that makes being alive about more than just getting out of bed in the morning.
But this is where 51-year-old Mary Graham found hers: bathing people who are too ill to take care of themselves and are too much for their families to handle, washing away the sour stink of sickness, leaving them feeling refreshed and renewed even though their flesh may be rotting from bedsores," says a profile of home health aide Mary Graham in the January 6 Detroit Free Press.
Graham, who was honored as aide of the year by her employer, the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan, became a home health aide after quitting her job to care for her mother at home. Her clients "rely on Mary to give them back a little bit of the dignity they lost a long time ago," the article says. "She relies on them, too. They are her ties to her own mother."
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February 23, 2008
National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) Annual Forum
January 27, 2008
The 3nd Annual Private Duty Home Care Leadership Summit
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