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The Direct Care Alliance (DCA), a national advocacy organization for direct-care workers, is inaugurating its new midtown Manhattan headquarters on September 11.

After a half-hour reception, the program will begin at 6 p.m. with a welcome from DCA Board Chair John Booker. Executive Director Leonila Vega, Stacey Easterling of The Atlantic Philanthropies, and direct-care worker Bridget Siljander will also speak, followed by video highlights from the 2007 DCA convention.

See the invitation (pdf) for details and RSVP information.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org

A newly awarded federal grant will fund continuing research and analysis on how to strengthen and support the personal assistance services workforce.

The University of California San Francisco’s five-year-old Center for Personal Assistance Services (PAS Center) learned last week that is has been funded for another five years by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. In a news release about the grant, Charlene Harrington (pictured), the Center’s director and principal investigator, describes the center’s goal as “providing support so that people with disabilities can live and work independently in their community, as opposed to being institutionalized in a nursing home.”

Starting this October, the center will focus on three areas under the $4.25 million grant: improving access to PAS by individuals with disabilities; improving the workforce to support individuals with disabilities, and understanding the complexities of the economics of PAS. The center has done research documenting low wages, a scarcity of health care benefits, and high turnover rates among PAS workers.

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“If I had only one sentence, this would be it: Direct support work is a highly skilled job,” says Amy Hewitt.

“It’s not viewed that way by society – or, frankly, by many employers – but not everybody can do this job. You have to be smart; you have to be able to problem solve; you have to be flexible and a quick thinker. You also need patience and empathy and creativity. We’re not going to get anywhere in terms of policy advocacy or getting the supports we need in place without clearly articulating that this is a highly skilled job.”

Hewitt is a senior research associate at the University of Minnesota’s Research and Training Center on Community Living. The center’s mission is to support community living for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities – and that has led to a focus on strengthening and supporting the direct support workforce.

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When direct-care workers and their clients can’t get the support they need through government agencies, they can always try the courts. That’s what Oregon resident Clay Freeman is doing in a federal civil-rights lawsuit, which would require the state to increase the base pay for some home care aides in the Oregon Home Care Commission (OHCC).

Only by guaranteeing workers a sufficient wage, says Freeman v. Goldberg et al., (pdf) can Freeman hire the help he needs to exercise his federally granted right, under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, to live at home and remain a functioning member of his community. And the wages paid to his workers, the suit says, must reflect the complex levels of care they deliver.

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“The Baby Boom generation will need care, and most people today prefer to stay in their homes, so in order to attract and maintain people like Rosa, we need to make sure they’re paid a livable wage, that they have health care benefits and that they have the training they deserve,” Washington Governor Christine Gregoire told Tacoma Weekly. Gregoire was talking about having shadowed Tacoma home care worker Rosa Vadillo for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)’s June 30 “Walk A Day In My Shoes” event.

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Tameshia Bridges, PHI’s Michigan senior workforce advocate, has been chosen to join a selective national network of policy and advocacy leaders.

The Progressive Leadership and Advocacy Network (PLAN) is for “emerging advocacy leaders working to effect positive change for low-income women and their families.” It helps participants become more effective advocates by strengthening their leadership and advocacy skills, in-depth policy knowledge, and networks of connection in the field. It is run by the National Women’s Law Center.

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