My two cents worth on another of our campaigns, I was asked by a big-time reporter, today, how I felt about mandatory training and I wanted to share it here because I think its how many of us feel: Everything should be voluntary in Person Centered Care. Those who are unable to train their providers themselves should be able to choose that training by indicating to their social worker or case manager that they want their providers trained for them, and acquire that training from the Cafeteria of Services model recommended by the RTZ study commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to do a study of In-Home Supportive Services in California. The Cafeteria of Services Model meant that consumers can select from a list of available long-term services and supports. Voluntary choice is critical because the Disability Rights Movement made it clear in their agreements with the unions, that self-determination that brought seniors and people disabilities out of institutions must not be forgotten and a situation permitted where institutionalization in ones own home takes its place. Also, it is critical that training firms that are vying for the mandatory training, such as the one on the ballot initiative in California this year for 75 hours of mandatory training, must not be permitted to take $600 million-$1 billion in tax revenues, estimated by Legislative Analysts Office, from an in-home supportive services budget that was already operating at a 7% cut in care hours. In-home supportive services care hours for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities (the raison dêtre for IHSS program ) needed to be restored before any such enormous cost was added including additional bureaucratic costs to track where the provider is in the training in not permitting them to return to consumers if they were not finished. Also, These expenditures must be proportional within Medicaid budgets. When care hours have been cut by 7%, expensive mandatory training programs, for those who do not want them, need them and find them a burden and a barrier to finding providers, are not a judicious use of Medicaid funds. And they result in cuts to care hours for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities – that should be the primary priority that the program is all about. In the state of Washington, these 75 hour mandatory training programs led to a dramatic draining of the pool of available providers and cuts in service hours to Seniors and People with Disabilities. I can point you to an audit and to Disability Rights Washington for that information if you wish. These union initiated programs refuse to acknowledge the priority of their place in Medicaid budgets and sidestep Health and Human Services Directors, who know the full scope of the need for services.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:54:05 +0000