Groundbreaking Coalition Introduces "Consumer Workforce Council" for Home Care in Pennsylvania

Initiative to Improve Wages and Provide Health Benefits for Direct Care Workforce Will Allow for More Home Care Options for Seniors and People with Disabilities

For More Information:  1-866-598-4311, info@choosehomecare.org

A coalition of direct care attendants, people with disabilities, seniors, and advocates announced a new initiative to deliver additional home care options to thousands of Pennsylvanians.  They have proposed the creation of a Consumer Workforce Council – a consumer-run body with a mandate to stabilize and improve consumer-directed care.

This Consumer Workforce Council would be charged with protecting the rights of seniors and people with disabilities to direct their own care, in their homes, while ensuring that the attendants who support them can advocate for higher wages and health benefits.  The Council was designed by a Consumer Attendant Workforce Steering Committee convened by the Commonwealth during the summer of 2008.  The Committee will present its vision of expanded home care services to Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Labor and Industry, Sandi Vito, on September 5th.  

Earlier this year, the Commonwealth introduced a different plan called the "Quality Home Care Commission".  Rejected by key stakeholders, the diverse coalition asked the Commonwealth to convene a Steering Committee to redesign the project – with consumer-employers and direct care workers themselves as the centerpiece. This new plan – supported by several major Centers for Independent Living, major direct care workers’ unions, and key senior advocacy organizations – will explicitly and completely preserve the rights of home care consumers to direct their own workers, among other important points. 

"It’s great that the state is focused on bringing home care to thousands of consumers in Pennsylvania," said Tom Earle, Chairman of the Steering Committee and CEO of Liberty Resources, the largest Center for Independent Living in the state. "But the Quality Home Care Commission plan they developed didn’t work for people with disabilities, and other consumer-employers who direct their own care.  This Consumer Workforce Council will ensure that we get care we trust and deserve – and that home care workers get the wages, healthcare, and respect they need to stay on the job."

"I worked for 11 years to provide support to my home care consumer after she was hit by a car as a teenager," said Carol Jones, a home care worker from Washington, PA, who also served on the Steering Committee.  "But the low wages and lack of benefits meant that her other caregivers couldn’t stick with the job.  I’m part of this family, and want to make sure consumer-employers 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."

Attached to this email, please find a printable version of this document, some basic questions and answers about the Consumer Workforce Council, and a list of participants from the Consumer/Attendant Workforce Steering Committee convened this summer.  You can also download the document here -- http://choosehomecare.org/sites/choosehomecare.org/files/final_statement_on_consumer_workforce_council_september_2008.pdf

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