The Schuylkill County Direct Care Workers Association newsletter has resumed publication as of this month, to serve workers in eastern Pennsylvania.

The current issue includes reports about an award-winning elder abuse prevention program; last year’s direct-care worker forum with U.S. Senator Robert Casey, which was organized by direct-care Brenda Nachtway; two direct-care worker conferences attended last year by representatives of the association; and more. The newsletter will be published quarterly.

To subscribe, contact Lori Michael at jlskm@verizon.net or 877-264-3505.

Virginia’s media have been covering the need for better direct-care wages more than usual lately, mostly because of a proposed budget amendment that would increase wages for personal care attendants (PCAs) by 10 percent.

At hearings across the state last week, PCAs and the people they assist testified in favor of the amendment – and their testimony made it into many print and electronic news stories. “We had great turnout at the budget hearings,” State Director David Broder of the Virginia Association of Personal Care Assistants told Quality Care/Quality Jobs. “All told, over 100 PCAs and their consumers attended 5 hearings across the state.”

Coverage included:

• A January 9 story in Southwest Virginia Today
• A January 4 feature in the Bristol Herald Courier
• A January 4 story in the Lynchburg News and Advance

Members of the U.S House of Representatives were urged to support H.R. 1279, the Direct Support Professionals Fairness and Security Act, at a January 16 hearing on Capitol Hill. The bill calls for improving the wages and benefits of direct support professionals.

The hearing was held by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health to examine the role of Medicaid in helping people with disabilities. According to a news release from the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR), the organization behind H.R. 1279, most presenters focused on accessing community care, and some spoke of the need to better support the workers who provide that care. ANCOR member Ralph Gronefeld, the president and CEO of ResCare, urged committee members to support H.R. 1279, making the connection between low pay and high turnover rates among direct-care workers.

“This is a tremendous moral victory,” said Renee Pietrangelo, CEO of ANCOR, in the release. “Members of the committee are discussing our bill, H.R. 1279, in the context of the critical role Medicaid plays in the lives of Americans with disabilities. This is a result of the grassroots support our providers, direct support professionals, and families have shown on the workforce wage issue.”

“The biggest difference between Green Houses and traditional nursing homes are [the direct-care workers], specially trained and empowered staff who assist the residents in everything from eating to toileting,” said a PBS report on the Green House model of long-term care. The workers are called shahbazim, the plural of shahbaz, a Persian word meaning “royal falcon.”

“At the Green House, the role of shahbaz turns upside-down the traditional nursing home staffing model, where administrators and nurses call the shots while the certified nursing assistants, or CNAs, do the grunt work,” says the report. “It’s the shahbazim who run the show.”

What’s more, shahbazim are paid $13 an hour, “about 40 percent more than the going rate here in Nebraska for CNAs,” and the staff-to-resident ratio is “about a third higher than in the average nursing home.” As a result, the report says, the retention rate for shahbazim who started in that position full-time is 100 percent.

Watch the video or read the transcript of the broadcast, which aired on the January 23 edition of PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

A new publication from Dr. Charlene Harrington of the University of California San Francisco lists the state staffing standards for nursing homes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Laid out in chart form, Nursing Home Staffing Standards in State Statutes and Regulations (pdf) summarizes the requirements for direct-care staff, as well as for licensed staff and caregiving staff overall. The report also estimates the difference between the state requirements and the federal standard for facilities with 100 beds, based on a formula that is explained in an endnote. Links are included to each relevant statute and regulation.

“The information is important for state advocates to have because any meaningful improvements in staffing will probably have to be made at the state level,” Harrington told Quality Care/Quality Jobs. “For instance, Florida has the highest standards at this time, but the state did not set a minimum limit for RNs, so nursing facilities are substituting licensed vocational nurses for RNs because they are less costly. This can have a negative impact on quality.”