The Direct Care News     transparent logo, white type
For direct care workers and their allies
 
June 17, 2014
Celebrate National Nursing Assistants Week by Giving R-E-S-P-E-C-T Year-Round
If you talk to direct care workers about what they do for a living, you will discover within the first five minutes of your conversation that they are proud of the care they provide. Talk to them a little longer and you will probably also hear how conflicted they are about their work, largely because of how underappreciated and disrespected it is by the rest of us.

Growing up I can vividly recall my mother, a 30-year career CNA (now retired), exemplifying that dichotomy when she spoke to me and my brothers about her work. While she certainly enjoyed the care side of direct care work, I could hear the disappointment in her voice when she talked about how the work she and fellow direct care workers provided was rarely appreciated or talked about with respect by others within the nursing home and VA hospital she worked at. Read the rest of Carla Washington's editorial on Huffington Post.
Direct from Washington, D.C.
Capitol HIll
Proposed DOL Rule Would Raise Minimum Wage for VA Hospital CNAs, Other Federal Contractors: Last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a proposed rule to raise the federal contractor minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The proposed rule follows President Obama's February 12 Executive Order mandating the wage increase, which will apply only to employee wages on new contracts beginning January 1, 2015. Nursing assistants at Veterans Affairs Department hospitals are among the nearly 200,000 workers who will benefit from the increase.
 
Join in the FAMILY Act Week of Action! This week (June 16-20) is designated as a week of action for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act), which would make paid family and medical leave available to nearly all of America's workers. Urge your members of Congress to support the FAMILY Act and encourage your coworkers, family and friends to do the same. You are also invited to join a FAMILY Act tweetstorm this Thursday from 3-4pm ET (use #FAMILYAct on Twitter), to share why paid family and medical leave matters to you and your family. Learn more about how the FAMILY Act will help direct care workers, their clients and our economy.
What Makes a Good Caregiver: The Most Important Trait of All
Me and Mom after her stroke
I've been covering the world of long-term care for almost 20 years now, focusing for more than half that time on direct care workers, so I've thought a lot about the many traits--including competence, compassion, reliability, attentiveness and patience--that make good direct care workers so good at their work. But not until my own mom became a "total care" nursing home resident did I learn to appreciate what I now think is the most important trait of all.

A massive stroke at the end of 2012 left Mom with severe expressive aphasia. She can usually understand what is said to her and knows what she wants to say in response, but she can rarely get out the words she needs to make herself understood. She's come a long way, after months of speech therapy, but for every time she can say the right word or short phrase there are many more when she can only get out a string of unconnected words. Watching people react to Mom has taught me a lot about how our words define us. Read more from Elise Nakhnikian. 
Quick Links
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Direct from the Headlines
A study finds that punitive managers and overreliance on rigid rules foster bad patterns of interaction in nursing homes, harming resident care and staff satisfaction--but there are methods managers can use to encourage positive interactions between staff.

Delay the minimum wage and overtime rule for home care workers even longer? Home care workers deserve better, and so do consumers.

Watch Respect: The Joy of Aides, a wonderful 20-minute documentary by Eva Sweeney, a woman with CP, about how to hire and manage aides and what it's like when a direct care worker and a client work well together.

Good news for home care worker wages: a 5% pay raise in Minnesota, home care workers fighting for fair wages all across America, and rallies in Cleveland and Boston, where home care workers are calling for a $15 minimum wage for their profession.

Sign up by June 20 for the June 24 virtual kick-off of The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care's Nursing Home Staffing Public Awareness Campaign.

Looking to improve your advocacy skills? Consumer Voice is offering free state-based, in-person advocacy skills training starting next month. The window for applications closes on June 23.

A home care provider in the UK was ordered to repay staff �600,000 for unpaid travel time between clients.

Artist Mike Weber is traveling to Japan to exhibit his paintings, with the help of his direct support professional.
Direct Care Alliance is the national advocacy voice of direct care workers in long-term care. We empower workers to speak out for better wages, benefits, respect, and working conditions, so more people can commit to direct care as a career. We also convene powerful allies nationwide to build consensus for change. 

If you have comments on this issue of The Direct Care News or ideas for future issues, please contact Elise Nakhnikian at 646-823-7434 or enakhnikian@directcarealliance.org.