To ensure that all direct-care workers are able to provide the highest-quality care to all long-term care consumers, PHI advocates for 9 essential elements of a quality job:

Compensation

1. Family-sustaining wages¹
2. Affordable health insurance and other family-supportive benefits
3. Full-time hours if desired, stable work schedules, balanced workloads, and no mandatory overtime

Opportunity

4. Excellent training that helps each worker develop and hone all skills—both technical and relational—necessary to support long-term care consumers
5. Participation in decision making, acknowledging the expertise that direct-care workers contribute, not only to workplace organization and care planning, but also to public policy discussions that impact their work
6. Career advancement opportunities

Support

7. Linkages to both organizational and community services, as well as to public benefits, in order to resolve barriers to work
8. Supervisors who set clear expectations and require accountability, and at the same time encourage, support, and guide each direct-care worker
9. Owners and managers, willing to lead a participative, ongoing “quality improvement” management system—strengthening the core caregiving relationship between the long-term care consumer and the direct-care worker

¹ See the “Family Economic Self-Security” standard, authored by Wider Opportunities for Women.