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February 24, 2006 |
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Do you support the use of feeding assistants in nursing homes?
Yes, under the current regulations:
36%
Yes, if the regulations were changed:
32%
No:
32%
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Clearinghouse Launches Spanish-Language Section for Direct-Care Workers |
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The Direct-Care Worker Information Center, a section of the National
Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce, is now available
in Spanish.
Intended for direct-care workers whose primary language is
Spanish, the section is divided into four areas:
- Trabajos en el área del cuidado personal, which
describes job duties, training requirements, and average wages for
the various types of direct-care jobs in long-term care. It also
includes a section to help people considering the profession decide
what kind of direct-care work - if any - is right for them.
- Vínculos con otros colegas, which describes and
links to online communities, professional associations, and other
ways of connecting with others in the profession.
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El movimiento para crear puestos de trabajo de calidad,
which describes and links to organizations that are working to
improve direct-care jobs.
- Noticias y acontecimientos, which houses selected
news items from this newsletter translated into Spanish.
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To Have and Have Not |
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"To leave Augusta, I practically need a passport," writes personal
care attendant Roberta Record in a new addition to the
Clearinghouse's Voices from the Frontline section. "I haven't had a
vacation for three years. If I don't work, I don't get paid, and I
can't afford to take time off."
In her essay,
To Have and Have Not,
Record looks at how class and income differences affect her
relationships with the elders she serves.
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Workforce Investment Boards Can Help with Recruitment, Retention |
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A 16-page issue brief from the Better Jobs Better Care initiative
explains how long-term care providers can increase the supply of
direct-care workers and improve the stability of the workforce by
partnering with government-funded workforce development initiatives.
Long-term care has not yet captured its share of federal
Workforce Investment Act funding, according to
Engaging the Public Workforce Development System: Strategies for Investing in the Direct Care Workforce.
This is partly because most state or local workforce investment
boards (WIBs) know little about long-term care and view direct-care
jobs as unskilled and dead-end. In addition, many long-term care
employers see direct-care workers as easy to replace, and thus accept
high turnover rates as part of doing business.
Both parties must change their view of direct-care work in order
to partner effectively, writes author Dorie Seavey, a labor economist
with the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute.
Click here
for the rest of the story
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Does offering health care coverage help stabilize the direct-care
workforce?
Yes
No
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Dear Friend
The scaffolding just came down from two websites we've had under
construction for a while at the Paraprofessional Healthcare
Institute: a new site for our Health Care for Health Care Workers
initiative and a new Spanish-language section for our National
Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce. You can read about both
in this issue, and we hope you can find time to visit them. And, as
always, if you know of anything that should be amended or added,
please let us know.
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Website Outlines the Health Care Coverage Crisis in Direct Care
A new website for the Paraprofessional
Healthcare Institute's Health Care for Health Care Workers (HCHCW)
initiative houses information about the widespread lack of health
care coverage among direct-care workers in long-term care. "There is
a particular irony in the low rate of coverage among direct-care
workers," it notes. "These workers provide essential health care and
personal care to vulnerable elders and others living with
disabilities and long-term illnesses, yet more than a third have no
health insurance for themselves or their families."
Sections include:
- The Health Insurance Crisis. This describes the
crisis and outlines possible solutions.
- Resources. This houses descriptions of and links to
organizations working to address the crisis, as well as publications
that address the problem or describe local initiatives to expand
coverage.
- HCHCW Campaigns. This describes efforts being made
by HCHCW and its partners in three states - Maine, Michigan, and
Pennsylvania.
- Related Initiatives. This describes campaigns
initiated by other groups, employers, or state governments to expand
health care coverage.
- Telling Our Stories. This includes testimonials by
direct-care workers, consumers, and employers about how the lack of
affordable health insurance for workers has affected them.
- Newsroom. This provides a quick overview for the
media of HCHCW and the health insurance crisis affecting direct-care
workers and consumers.
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Direct-Care Jobs Still Increasing Fast
All three of the direct-care worker categories tracked by the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are expected to continue their
current growth spurt between 2004 and 2014, according to recently
released figures.
The greatest increase, both in percentage and in total numbers,
is expected to be among home health aides, whose numbers are
projected to increase by 56 percent (from 624,000 to 974,000). The
number of personal and home care aides is expected to grow by 41
percent (to 988,000, up from 701,000), while the number of nursing
aides, orderlies, and attendants is expected to increase by 22.3
percent (from 1.455 million to 1.781 million).
Median annual earnings as of 2004 were $16,900 for personal and
home care aides, $18,330 for home health aides, and $20,980 for
nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants, the BLS reports.
Click here
for details.
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Journal Examines the Politics of Paid Caring
The March issue of Politics and Society is a special issue
on paid caregivers that contains several provocative articles about
direct-care work.
Click here
to read more about it.
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Movement in Michigan
Efforts are underway on several fronts in Michigan to improve wages
and working conditions for direct-care workers.
Governor Jennifer Granholm's proposed update of the licensing
rules that govern the states adult foster care and homes for the aged
would require homes to regularly report staffing ratios and wage and
benefit levels to a statewide information clearinghouse.
In addition, the governor's proposed budget includes $20 million
to raise wages for home health workers. That increase would be "a key
first step" toward implementing
Recommendation No. 8
from the final report issued last year by Granholm's Medicaid
Long-Term Care Task Force, according to a press release from the
Michigan Quality Home Care Campaign. Recommendation no. 8 called for
the state to "Build and sustain a competent, highly valued,
competitively compensated and knowledgeable long-term care work
force."
The press release notes that about 50,000 people receive care
under the state's Home Help program from caregivers who earn an
average of $6.07 an hour and are not provided any health insurance,
leading to chronic turnover problems among home care workers. "In a
survey by the state of Michigan," it says, "35 percent of Home Help
consumers said they were forced to change their care provider in the
past year - 78 percent of those people saying they had gone through
two or three caregivers in a year."
On January 30, local affiliates of the Michigan Quality Home Care
Campaign announced their formation in Midland, Kent, Hillsdale, and
Oakland counties. The group - a coalition of senior and disability
rights groups, religious leaders, civic organizations and others -
advocates improving the quality of home care by improving the quality
of direct-care jobs.
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Bad Technology: Robot Workers Replace Staff
Remember how Klaatu, the alien visitor in
The Day the Earth Stood Still, commanded his giant robot not
to destroy the earth? With robots preparing an assault on elder care
homes, I'm thinking long-term care could use a Klaatu of its own.
A Japanese staffing agency called People Staff began offering two
types of robots this month for use in senior care homes. The
Yorisoi ifbot
quizzes elders, in what the company bills as a way to help prevent
decline in cognitive abilities, while the
Hello Kitty Robo
robot serves as a receptionist. The receptionist 'bots say "Welcome!"
when their sensors detect a visitor, capture the person's image and
voice through a camera and microphone, and send the data to a
personal computer.
Companies may buy the robots or rent them for 45,000 - 53,000
Japanese yen (about $375-450) a month.
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Good Technology: Supplemental Health Coverage Supports Staff
Morningside Ministries, which operates three senior living
communities in San Antonio, Texas, claims to have reduced both stress
and health-related absenteeism and tardiness for its employees by
creating an onsite telehealth clinic.
According to the February 6 issue of
Assisted Living Director, the clinic is open to all
employees of the three communities as well as their spouses and
children, but it has been used most by certified nursing assistants.
Staffed with a registered nurse and a licensed vocational nurse, it
is equipped with a high-speed phone line connected to cameras that
provides two-way audio-visual communication with a physician in
Galveston. The physician can use instruments in the telemedicine
station to look inside a patient's ears, eyes, and throat and to
examine skin lesions. The clinic is funded by a start-up grant and
has been free of charge to date.
"The telehealth clinic definitely reduces time away from work and
makes dealing with a sick child, for example, so much easier for
employees," the executive director of one of the communities told
Assisted Living Director. The executive director also said
he believes that the clinic, which is now featured in the
organization's help-wanted notices, has made recruitment easier.
The article notes that the clinic is "not meant to replace an
employee's primary physician, but to help deal with minor health
issues and allow employees convenient care that will minimize their
time away from work to seek minor medical services."
Click here to read the
article (free to subscribers only).
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March 21, 2006
Rosalynn Carter Institute Gala Celebration of Caregivers, Atlanta, GA
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March 19, 2006
ANCOR 2006 Management Practices Conference and Trade Show, The
Western Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta GA
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March 16, 2006
National Council on the Aging and The American Society on Aging Joint
Conference, Anaheim, California
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