Project Description:
This project is in response to critical workforce shortages across the long-term care and home and community based services industry. This industry provides ?hands-on? support and services to the estimated 90,000 people identified as beneficiaries of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. These individuals experience developmental disabilities, age related diseases and disabilities, physical disabilities, mental illness, substance abuse, and traumatic brain injury.
Alaska has long suffered from a limited pool of health workers based on numerous studies within the state including: Alaska?s Allied Health Workforce: A Statewide Assessment (2001); Long-Term Care Workforce Recruitment and Retention in Rural Alaska: A Report on Personal Care Attendant Focus Groups (2001); Alaska Alliance for Direct Service Careers: Wage and Benefit Research Report (2002). Because of this limited pool of workers, provider agencies report having annual turnover rates of more than 50% and many agencies employ workers without minimum qualifications (C&S Management Associates, 2002). There is national evidence that providing ongoing, challenging training increases the retention of qualified personnel (Hewitt, Larson, Sauer, Anderson, & O?Nell, 2001). Quality services require high quality staff. Direct service personnel often receive the least training and fewest incentives?resulting in poorly trained staff and less than quality services.
In response to this critical workforce need, the Center for Human Development at the University of Alaska Anchorage, College of Health and Social Welfare proposes to:
1) Increase capacity of faculty to meet the training needs of the geriatric and disability workforce.
2) Increase professional development and career lattice/ladder opportunities for the long-term care and home and community based services workforce.
3) Develop and pilot an impact evaluation of education and retention strategies.
As a result this project will: 1) Increase the number of highly qualified adjunct faculty to teach courses targeting the direct care workforce; 2) Develop a marketing plan that responds to the needs of the direct care workforce; 3) Conduct outreach and recruitment activities to a minimum of 500 workers that result in 50 workers receiving assistance to access education opportunities and career planning support; 4) Develop and pilot a workforce impact evaluation matrix.
Target Audience:
Students/Trainees (long or intermediate trainees), Community Trainees / Short term trainees, Professionals and Para-Professionals
