Title Slide:

Personal and Home Care Aide State Training (PHCAST) Grant 
Project Advisory Group
Friday, January 28th, 2011, 10am – 12pm
Ashburton Café, One Ashburton Place

Slide 2:
Our Agenda for Today
•	Welcome and Introductions 

•	PHCAST Grant Overview
–	Project goals
–	Grant Team Members
–	High level work plan 

•	Role of Advisory Group

•	Group Discussion

•	Proposed Meeting Frequency and Location

Slide 3:
PHCAST Grant Overview
•	Grant program established under Section 5507 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 

–	To train personal and home care aides to provide care in complex health care environments such as home healthcare services, residential care facilities, and private households

–	To develop care training competencies and certification programs for personal and home care aides

–	Ensure that we have competent personal and home care aides with acquired skills that would be transportable to any job market in the Nation, thus strengthening the direct-care worker workforce

Slide 4:
PHCAST Grant Requirements
As part of the PHCAST Grant program, states must:

–	Implement core training competencies

–	Develop written materials and protocols for core training competencies, including the development of a certification test for personal or home care aides who have completed training

Slide 5:
PHCAST Overview—More details
•	Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is federal funding agency

•	Six states were awarded grants under this initiative
–	MA, CA, IA, NC, MI, and ME

•	MA awarded $738,993  for year 1, with expected continued funding for years 2 and 3 of initiative

•	National Technical Assistance will be provided by JBS International

•	National evaluation contractor will be selected by HRSA within next year 

Slide 6:
Why now for Massachusetts?
•	Primary project drivers for MA include:

–	Growing long-term support needs of elders and people with disabilities

–	Governor’s mandate in the MA Community First Olmstead Plan to address direct care workforce

–	A need to bring coherence to growing direct service / care workforce with similar roles in different settings

–	Increasing payer expectations regarding quality & outcomes in direct care service arena

S;de 7:
The Massachusetts Long-term / 
Direct Care Workforce Landscape
•	Massachusetts currently employs and/or pays for long-term support direct care workers through a number of state agencies including but not limited to:
–	EOEA, MassHealth Office of Long-term Care, DDS, DPH, Soldiers’ Homes, MRC, DMH, DCF, DYS, MCB

•	The Commonwealth spends >4B on long term supports for people with disabilities, ~47% in community settings

•	These workers provide the following types of direct care supportive services:
–	Assistance with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) 
–	Skills training
–	Cueing / monitoring & other communication & behavioral support
–	Other

Slide 8:
Workforce Landscape
•	These direct care workers provide services in varied locations including:

–	Home based settings
•	Individuals, families, congregate

–	Day program settings

–	Facilities

Slide 9:
Workforce Landscape
•	Challenges faced by consumers, workers, agencies:

–	Same worker may be employed through various programs (i.e., paid by various agencies) to provide same type of care
–	Agencies may have different requirements for workers in each setting (often dependent on funding stream)
–	Needed core competencies may be the same across consumers but not required across agencies / settings
–	Worker titles are multiple and overlapping
•	I.e., Direct Care Workers? Direct Support Professionals? LTC Direct Care? 
–	Worker pay varies not always based on competencies

Slide 10:
MA PHCAST Grant Overview
•	Project Goals:
–	to improve and enhance existing curricula for home care aides and personal care assistants
–	develop a set of core competencies and related curricula across direct care workers
–	establish cross-agency framework for shared worker competency development and training

•	Project Partners:
–	UMMS MassAHEC (Area Health Education Center)(Project management)
–	Massachusetts Council for Home Care Aide Services (Personal Care Homemaker training partner)
–	Bristol Community College (Personal Care Attendant training partner) and Bristol Employment Collaborative
–	PHI International (Curriculum design partner)
–	CommCorp (Program evaluation partner)
–	PCA Workforce Council

Slide 11:
MA PHCAST Overarching 
Work Plan Objectives  
•	Objective 1 DEVELOPMENT: Develop new PHCA standardized curriculum through an assessment and evaluation of core competencies related to skills, knowledge and attitude 

•	Objective 2 IMPLEMENTATION: Implement, evaluate and revise the new PHCA standardized curriculum and additional training components 

•	Objective 3 INTEGRATION AND SUSTAINABILTY: Integrate new PHCA standardized curriculum into existing state training systems resulting in trained direct care workers

•	Objective 4 DISSEMINATION: Disseminate PHCA standardized curriculum and project results 

Slide 12: Graphic depiction of grant training model.

Slide 13:
Interface with Other Workforce Development Efforts Underway
State:
•	Health Care Workforce Strategic Planning Process (EOWLD/EOHHS)
•	ECCLI
•	Community College developments
•	State agency direct care worker training
–	Private vendor purchasing; community college course purchasing; other

Private Sector:
–	Proprietary & other course development
–	Providers Council eAcademy; other
		
Federal/National:
•	DOL Long-Term Supports, Care and Services Competency Model development
•	Community Support Skills Standards (CSSS)

Slide 14:
DOL Long-term Supports, Care, and Services Competency Model (as of 7.20.10)

Slide 15:
MA Project Status
•	Work underway to establish core competencies  across PCA and PCMH 

–	Using DOL and CSSS as baseline; in collaboration w/ PHI
–	Plan to validate competencies with sample of workers and consumers

•	Work initiated with JBS International

•	Baseline assessments of curricula underway; curriculum development to follow

•	Trainings being planned for spring / summer

Slide 16:
Role of Advisory Group
•	Provide input on overall strategy

•	Provide access to information regarding program and workforce-specific training & resources for review

•	Inform workforce typology development

•	Review the appropriateness of core competencies across worker groups

•	Help build the education-to-career paths

•	Assess the role of / need for certification(s)

Slide 17:
We need your input…
•	As we start working on the typology of the workforce, how should we think about who to include and why?

–	While this is focused on long term care particularly in the community,
•	Should facility based workers be part of our consideration
•	Should direct service / care workers outside of narrow ltss be included (DYS & DCF child direct care workers)?
•	What about family-home based workers (child & adult foster care; respite care homes; etc)?
•	Are peer workers appropriate to include?

–	Is there value to using the “direct service worker” language as an umbrella?

Slide 18:
We need your input…
•	What are your initial thoughts about the value of core competencies?

•	What are training resources you think it is important for us to review?

•	As we start to think about education to career paths, what issues do you think are important to consider?

Slide 19:
Advisory Group Next Steps
•	Meeting frequency
–	Propose meeting quarterly or semi-annually
–	Best meeting times?

•	Meeting locations
–	Boston, Worcester?