In Iowa, training requirements for personal care aides (PCAs) are uniform—but minimal compared to training requirements for home health aides and nursing assistants. Since 2006, Iowa’s long-term care leaders have been striving to create a competency-based training and certification system that spans all direct care workers and ensures high-quality care across populations and settings. While their efforts have achieved promising results, actual training requirements have not been adopted by the state. This report is part of a three-part series focusing on states that have led the way in developing PCA training standards.
Stephen Campbell is a Data and Policy Analyst at PHI. In this capacity, he studies and writes about a variety of issues facing the direct care workforce–with the goal of reforming state and national policies.
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Caring for the Future
Our new policy report takes an extensive look at today's direct care workforce—in five installments.