People With Disabilities, Seniors, And Homecare Workers Fight For Consumer Workforce Council, Pennsylvania

Main Category: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 03 Oct 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Stakeholders in Pennsylvania's Long Term Care System Work for More and Better Home Care Options. People with disabilities, seniors, direct care attendants, and community advocates have announced a major proposal to strengthen home care for thousands more Pennsylvanians. They have proposed the creation of a Consumer Workforce Council -- a consumer-driven board charged with protecting the rights of seniors and people with disabilities who direct their own care -- while ensuring that the attendants who support them can advocate for living wages and health benefits.

The CWC was designed by a diverse Consumer Attendant Workforce Steering Committee convened during the summer of 2008. After weeks of research and discussion, the Committee, led by longtime consumers of home care services and the direct care workers who provide those services, recommended that the state establish a Consumer Workforce Council. Coalition partners say this Consumer Workforce Council will work to promote home care options for seniors and people with disabilities by improving wages and providing health benefits for direct care attendants.

Earlier this year, the Commonwealth introduced a different plan, called the "Quality Home Care Commission". Rejected by these key stakeholders, people with disabilities, seniors, and direct care workers asked the Commonwealth to convene a Steering Committee to redesign the project -- with consumer-employers and direct care workers themselves as the centerpiece.

"It's great that the state is focused on bringing home care to thousands more Pennsylvanians, " said Tom Earle, Chairman of the Steering Committee and CEO of Liberty Resources, the largest Center for Independent Living in Pennsylvania. "The Consumer Workforce Council, designed by stakeholders like us, will ensure that we get care we trust and deserve -- and that direct care workers get the wages, healthcare, and respect they need to stay on the job."

The Consumer Workforce Council is supported by the largest disability rights groups, senior advocacy organizations, and health care workers' unions in the state of Pennsylvania. These groups include the AARP of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Alliance of Retired Americans, Voices for Independence, Liberty Resources, Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living, Disability Options Network, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, 1199C AFSCME, the Action Alliance of Senior Citizens, and Philadelphia ADAPT.

"I worked for 11 years to provide support to a wonderful lady after she was hit by a car as a teenager," said Carol Jones, a direct care worker from Washington, PA. "But the low wages and lack of benefits meant that her other caregivers couldn't stick with the job. I want to make sure that seniors and people with disabilities never go without care. That's why I support this Consumer Workforce Council, and I'm ready to work to make it happen in PA."

By 2020, almost 20 percent of Pennsylvanians will be over 65, and the over-85 population will have increased by 52%. While over 90% of Pennsylvanians have said that they want long term care in their own homes and communities, over 80% of Pennsylvania's long term care dollars are spent in nursing homes.

"Pennsylvania's Home Care Association looks at home care consumers as patients, not people," said Kathleen Kleinman, CEO of Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living. "They may say that people with disabilities, seniors, and direct care workers aren't experiencing a crisis in home care. They may say we don't have the right to direct our own care or to come up with our own solutions. We say that our home care crisis is real. Twenty-five years ago people like me helped to invent consumer-directed home care services in this state. The program has expanded so much that we need a new approach to building the reliable and retainable workforce we need."

"Governor Rendell needs to understand that seniors, direct care workers, and people with disabilities are the real stakeholders when it comes to making decisions about our own care," said Cassie James of Philadelphia ADAPT, a longtime advocacy group working for the rights of people with disabilities in Philadelphia and nationwide. "Home care agencies are really worried about protecting their profits. We're worried about protecting people as they stay independent in their homes and communities -- and consumers' rights to hire and employ their own attendants. We know this crisis firsthand, and that's why we're supporting Pennsylvania's Consumer Workforce Council."

To read a full set of Frequently Asked Questions on home care in Pennsylvania, visit http://choosehomecare.org/node/27.

http://www.choosehomecare.org