Our Vision for Professionalizing the Direct Care Workforce
The challenges facing direct care professionals—at work and at home—are long-term and systemic. They must be addressed deliberately and immediately. Without permanent solutions, our nation simply will not be able to continue providing high-quality services and supports to a rapidly growing older population.
Along with researchers at the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, we developed six strategies for reimagining the professional direct care workforce across long-term care settings: 1) expand the caregiver pipeline, 2) strengthen education and training, 3) facilitate career advancement, 4) increase compensation, 5) prepare universal workers, and 6) reform the LTSS financing system.
This vision captured in our new paper, Feeling Valued Because They Are Valued, is part of our long-standing efforts to encourage policymakers and consumers to reexamine how they view direct care professionals and the work they do. We’re calling on all Americans to reimagine the role direct care professionals can play within our health and LTSS systems—for the good of older adults, their families, and their professional caregivers.
Feeling Valued Because They Are Valued
Making Care Work Pay
This related LeadingAge study offers a glimpse into a different world—a world in which direct care workers earn at least a living wage.
