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The Family Caregiver Alliance (FCA) and National Center on Caregiving honored PHI Massachusetts with its “2010 Best Advocacy Award” for sponsoring Come Care with Me Days.

PHI’s Come Care with Me Days give elected officials the opportunity to learn firsthand about direct-care workers’ jobs by shadowing an aide at work. In addition, the participants gain a better understanding of the critical need to build an adequate, stable, and skilled direct-care workforce.

“Thank you for your excellent example of working with elected officials to understand the important work undertaken by the nation’s home care workers,” wrote Kathleen Kelly, the executive director of the FCA. “We hope this experience will remain with them as they make budget and programmatic decisions affecting home care workers, patients, and family caregivers.”

Bill Filed to Assess if Massachusetts Is Prepared to Care

Throughout an afternoon in September 2010, Massachusetts State Representative Kate Hogan, co-chair of the Elder Caucus, worked alongside a home health aide who provides critical supports three times a week to her homebound client.

One week later, Massachusetts State Senator Pat Jehlen, Senate Chair of the Committee on Elder Affairs, joined a homemaker/personal care attendant on her weekly visit to the home of her 102-year-old client.

Just months after participating in a Come Care with Me Day, Jehlen filed a bill to establish a task force to determine Massachusetts’ preparedness for the CLASS Plan. The task force would be charged with collecting and examining the state’s direct-care workforce data, and assessing the Commonwealth’s infrastructure for supporting efficient long-term services and supports and mechanisms to ensure quality care.

A hearing on the bill (SB45) will be held in the fall.

“The Come Care with Me Days gave Senator Jehlen and Representative Hogan the opportunity to participate in direct-care work firsthand,” said PHI Massachusetts Director Amy Robins, who organized the events. “These legislators deserve a lot of credit for their interest in this workforce and their willingness to roll up their sleeves and actually do this work, which is physically and emotionally demanding.”

PHI has also sponsored Come Care with Me Days in Pennsylvania and Iowa since the advocacy campaign kicked off in 2009.

Come Care with Me Days are a project of PHI Health Care for Health Care Workers, which is made possible with support from the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

For more information on the campaign, contact PHI Director of Government Affairs Carol Regan.

An announcement [scroll down] about the eight other “2010 Best Of” award categories and recipients is available on the Alliance’s website.

– by Deane Beebe

(L-R) Massachusetts State Sen. Pat Jehlen, Personal Care Attendant Philomena Ahern

Massachusetts State Senator Pat Jehlen, chair of the Committee on Elder Affairs, introduced a bill on January 20 to establish a task force to determine the state’s preparedness for the CLASS Act by examining its direct-care workforce.

The CLASS Act, established under the health reform law, is the voluntary federal insurance plan that will help consumers purchase long-term services and supports.

“There is an enormous, predictable increase in demand for a well-trained and readily available direct-care workforce in Massachusetts, and we must be ready with the supply,” said Jehlen, who participated in a PHI-sponsored Come Care with Me Day.

The task force would be convened by the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services and include staff from that office, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, and government departments that provide management, delivery, or funding of direct-care services and employment.

Assessing the Data and Infrastructure

The task force would assess current direct-care workforce data and make recommendations to improve it, including:

• collecting available data sources on the number of workers, turnover and vacancies, and average wages and benefits;
• identifying gaps in data;
• planning for collecting and analyzing the workforce data on an annual basis; and
• providing recommendations on how to develop a sustainable, regular data reporting system.

The task force would also examine the infrastructure for supporting efficient long-term services and supports and mechanisms to ensure quality, and make recommendations for improvement, including an:

• analysis of current and projected workforce capacity;
• assessment of the current training and credentialing infrastructure;
• assessment of the quality of support for consumers as employers, supervisors and trainers; and
• assessment of the adequacy of the existing infrastructure for connecting consumers and workers.

In addition, the bill calls for an analysis of the impact of the state’s Community First program on workforce issues to ensure that the state’s response to CLASS also addresses the needs of this initiative.

The bill states that the task force would be required to present a report to the Massachusetts governor and legislature by June 30, 2012.

Jehlen Shadowed Direct-Care Worker

Jehlen filed the legislation just months after participating in a Come Care with Me Day, a project in which legislators shadow direct-care workers to better understand direct-care worker jobs and the critical role they play in meeting the needs of the growing number of elders and people with disabilities.

Jehlen worked beside Philomena Ahern, a homemaker and personal care attendant with Homemaker Services, at the home of Stella Murphy, a 102-year-old woman, whom Ahern helps weekly.

In an interview filmed during the Come Care with Me Day, Jehlen says, “If we want to keep people doing this work, we need to pay them enough to live on.”

More information on the Massachusetts direct-care workforce (pdf) is available on PHI’s website.

– by Deane Beebe

PHI Massachusetts Policy Director Amy Robins (L) with panelist and attendees

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