About the Direct Care Alliance
Direct care workers know how it feels to make someone’s day just by showing up to work. Millions of Americans rely on their help for essentials like getting out of bed, getting dressed, and getting to work or to church – not to mention sensitive tasks like cleaning a trachea tube. These intimate interactions form highly personal yet professional bonds between direct care workers and those they assist: People who start out as strangers often become trusted friends.
But too many barriers can get in the way of doing the job right. Low wages, poor benefits, insufficient training, and a lack of respect contribute to sky-high turnover rates. Overstretched workers in understaffed facilities have no time to respond to individual preferences or form close relationships – the very things that give their work meaning and improve the lives of the people they work with. And people who direct their own care struggle to find and keep the workers they need to remain independent.
The Direct Care Alliance is working to remove those barriers. We provide leadership training and other resources to direct care workers and their organizations, supporting advocacy of the workers, by the workers, and for the workers. Our direct care worker constituents inject the voice of the workers themselves into national and state-level discussions about the direct care workforce. Joining them to advocate for an empowered and valued direct care workforce are people who receive long-term care services, people who own or manage long-term care and home care organizations, advocacy groups, and other organizations and individuals.
What we believe
Our board of directors
Our staff
Our direct care worker specialists
Our funders |
Graduates and staff of the first Voices Institute
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