According to the PA Long-Term Care Workforce Surveys: A Report to the PA Intra-Governmental Council on Long-Term Care (2004),  the Lehigh Valley has the highest percent of providers among all regions of PA reporting a “very serious problem with recruitment or retention of direct care workers” (26% of all providers). Additionally, the Lehigh Valley region holds the highest percent of Direct Care Workers in the state who have worked at the provider less than one year (52.6%).  Various sources have determined that one of the major issues facing older adults is that staff shortages caused by inability to recruit workers, increased training time caused by low retention rates and mistakes made by large populations of new, inexperienced and poorly trained direct care workers directly results in more expensive and lower quality care for older adults. 

 

In our efforts to create system change to increase recruitment and retention of direct care workers, the LVAA worked with the Philadelphia Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly (CARIE) on the Better Jobs Better Care demonstration project.

  

The project had four main accomplishments: