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
- Family-sustaining wages1
- Affordable health insurance and other family-supportive benefits
- Full-time hours if desired, stable work schedules, balanced workloads, and no mandatory overtime
Opportunity
- Excellent training that helps each worker develop and hone all skills—both technical and relational—necessary to support long-term care consumers
- 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
- Career advancement opportunities
Support
- Linkages to both organizational and community services, as well as to public benefits, in order to resolve barriers to work
- Supervisors who set clear expectations and require accountability, and at the same time encourage, support, and guide each direct-care worker
- 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.
Recent Comments