On December 13, 2024, the Disabilities Law Program (“DLP”) of Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (“CLASI”), issued a new report titled Revitalizing the Home Care Workforce: Innovative Strategies for Recruitment, Training, and Retention in Delaware.
Authored by DLP Public Health Fellow Hadja Toure, the report examines one of the most critical issues facing our clients: the shortage of direct care workers in Delaware to provide quality in-home personal care services.
For a myriad of reasons, individuals with disabilities are not able to access these services to the extent necessary, which places them at risk of losing their independence and being institutionalized against their wishes. Moreover, the failure of the healthcare system to meet individual needs leads to untold economic and personal stress for the individuals needing these services, as well as for their families and other caretakers.
The report outlines the state of direct care workers in Delaware coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies that other states have successfully implemented to help address this shortfall. It also reviews federal-level interventions, and it proposes recommended initiatives for Delaware to consider. These initiatives focus on the following areas:
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Enhancing training standards;
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Improving recruitment and retention;
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Creating sustainable work environments;
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Increasing wages and benefits;
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Better integrating immigrant workers into the direct care workforce.
The DLP hopes that Delaware’s government agencies most directly involved with community-based services will give proper consideration to this report. It also urges state legislators to translate some of the solutions, that have worked elsewhere, into legislative initiatives here. The time is now to create a multi-faceted approach to address workforce shortages in community health.
View the full report here.
