A new data portal developed at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration is pointing to some relief in the dire shortage of direct care workers who support people with disabilities in their daily lives.
ICI’s SupportWise Data, a tool that allows service provider organizations to analyze and improve workforce recruitment and retention, demonstrated that turnover ratios, vacancy rates, and wages are trending in positive directions in Rhode Island, a state working under a Department of Justice consent decree to improve services for people with disabilities living in community settings after years of underfunding and decreased services. Collecting data and reporting on the stability of the workforce providing these services is a critical progress measure, which ICI reports to the state’s court monitor. In addition to the data portal, ICI’s Direct Support Workforce Solutions team is part of a collaborative partnership known as the Rhode Island Statewide Workforce Initiative (RISWI), which includes the Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College, Community Provider Network of Rhode Island (CPNRI), and the state’s Department of Labor and Training (DLT) and Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities & Hospitals (BHDDH).
“To effectively serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), we must understand how our workforce is trained, supported, and performing. The launch of SupportWise Data empowers service providers to visualize, measure, and act on insights from workforce data, driving better outcomes," said Tina Spears, executive director of CPNRI, an association of the state’s nearly three dozen providers serving people with IDD. “SupportWise guides our efforts as a provider network to meet the evolving needs of our providers and their workforce.”
Spears pointed to additional measurable recent successes in the state, including a frontline supervisor training series and targeted approaches addressing early turnover.
Rhode Island’s DSP turnover ratio has dropped from 21% in December 2022 to 15% in June 2024 and DSP vacancy rates have dropped from 17% to 12% in that same timeframe, according to an October report by the RISWI group that was authored by ICI Director Amy Hewitt, along with colleagues Sandra Pettingell, Julie Bershadsky, and Heather Barcikowski. Hewitt and Spears were part of a team that presented results from Rhode Island at the TASH Conference on disability advocacy in December.
DSP average wages have increased from $18.94 in December 2022 to $21.12 in June 2024 and starting wages in that same period moved from $18.87 to $20.69, the report found. Additionally, the share of providers turning away referrals due to the workforce shortage has fallen from 63% to 33%. The group is now gathering and analyzing data trends covering the second half of 2024.
“As providers become more familiar with SupportWise, we are finding that they are actually using their data for their own internal needs more as well, which has been interesting to observe,” ICI’s Bershadsky said.
This includes organizational leaders using the workforce data to prioritize where they want to invest limited resources in order to maximize their return on investment, said Barbara Kleist, who leads strategic partnerships for Direct Support Workforce Solutions.
SupportWise allows multiple team members to enter workforce data simultaneously, prompts users to review data that appears to contain errors, and provides turnover ratios and other calculations instantly, said Pettingell. Comparison data from publicly available National Core Indicators averages appear next to an organization’s data for easy, immediate comparison. Once individual organizations have entered their data, a state-level comparison is performed, allowing them to benchmark progress compared with state peers and the national averages.
In addition to the data portal, Direct Support Workforce Solutions works with providers, states, and others to assess workforce characteristics, develop action plans, create realistic job previews that can help prospective workers assess whether they will be a good fit in a direct care role and incorporate behavioral interviewing, competency-based job descriptions, and comprehensive onboarding into providers’ hiring processes.
Providers nationwide continue to battle multiple headwinds, from state budgets that result in low wages and few benefits to limited staff training allowances and few advancement opportunities. Direct care workers, including direct support professionals (DSPs), report high levels of physical and emotional burnout, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and depression, ICI surveys show.
The momentum in workforce stability in Rhode Island since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic is welcome news, however.
“Because of our community’s courage to challenge ourselves, I’m optimistic about stabilizing Rhode Island’s direct support workforce,” said Kim Einloth, coordinator of youth and adult initiatives at the Sherlock Center. “We now have access to powerful information through SupportWise that lets us identify trends and take steps that will benefit this invaluable workforce and the people it supports. By being open to learning and willing to change, we can measure the effectiveness of these strategies over time.”
