Policy and Practice Note: Policy, Safety, and Regulation with Regard to Ontario Home Care Clients and Personal Support Workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Pamela Hopwood ◽  
Ellen MacEachen
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Community Health Care ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Home And Community Care ◽  
Personal Support Workers ◽  
Physical Care ◽  
Home Care Safety

Abstract In light of COVID-19 and elevated concerns for the health of older Canadians receiving care, this Policy and Practice Note explores the confluence of the current home care policy landscape and the organisation of personal support worker (PSW) work, and highlights the need to consider governance of PSW work generally, and in-home and community care especially. PSWs are currently not professionally regulated, nor is there a central site documenting location, education, or any form of verification of the PSW workforce. Home care PSWs often provide physical care in isolated settings with no in-person supervision. In home and community health care, complaints about PSWs can be scattered among different service providers or client files not linked to or searchable by PSW name. This policy note explores how these factors and the currently unregulated status of PSWs affect home care safety in general as well as in the context of COVID-19, Ontario’s decentralised home care system, and efforts towards professional regulation.

scholarly journals Challenging Aggressive Behaviors Experienced by Personal Support Workers in Comparison to Home Care Workers: Relationships between Caregiver Experiences and Psychological Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (15) ◽  
pp. 5486
Author(s):  
Kelsey N. Womack ◽  
Teala W. Alvord ◽  
Caitlyn F. Trullinger-Dwyer ◽  
Sean P. M. Rice ◽  
Ryan Olson
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Psychological Health ◽  
Safety Concern ◽  
Challenging Behaviors ◽  
Injury Rate ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Personal Support Workers ◽  
Lost Work Time ◽  
Home Care Workers

Personal support workers (PSW) are caregivers for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) or adults experiencing mental illness or other behavioral health conditions. The work can be very meaningful, but many PSWs must prepare for, monitor, and manage challenging behaviors, including aggression. This study was designed to estimate the prevalence of aggression experienced by PSWs in Oregon, and compare it to a previous sample of Oregon home care workers (HCWs). This comparison included an analysis of relationships between exposures to aggression and psychological health factors. PSWs in Oregon (N = 240) were surveyed electronically at a single time point. PSWs generally reported higher rates of exposure to aggression compared to HCWs. Experiences with aggression were positively associated with fatigue and weakly associated with depression, but not stress. PSWs’ self-reported lost work time injury rate was elevated compared to the US average, but it was comparable to previous self-reported injury rates from HCWs. Physical demands of work were the most prevalent reported primary safety concern, followed by challenging behaviors (including aggression). Developing tailored training to help PSWs understand, plan for, minimize, and manage challenging behaviors is a social priority.

Personal support workers and the labour market

2020 ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Audrey Laporte ◽  
Adrian Rohit Dass ◽  
Whitney Berta ◽  
Raisa Deber ◽  
Katherine Zagrodney
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Resource Planning ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Home And Community Care ◽  
Personal Support Workers ◽  
Sectoral Differences

This chapter analyses the labour market for Personal Support Workers (PSWs). It focuses on Canada as an illustrative case. The literature suggests that, while it is helpful to consider the PSW labour market as a whole from a neo-Weberian perspective, it is better thought of as a series of sub-markets – comprising the hospital, long-term care, and home and community care sectors. These may differ in terms of such factors as wages, benefits, hours worked and working conditions, as well as in the socio-demographic characteristics of PSWs working in each care sector. To the extent that sectoral differences in PSW characteristics affect labour supply behaviours and outcomes – as, for example, in creating differences in the proportion of PSWs nearing retirement age – the heterogeneous nature of the PSW labour market is an important consideration in resource planning. The chapter also explores how PSWs compare to other health professions such as nursing, and makes select references to the international PSW literature in charting a forward course.

Factors that influence the participation of individuals with deafblindness: A qualitative study with rehabilitation service providers in India

2020 ◽  
pp. 026461962094188
Author(s):  
Atul Jaiswal ◽  
Heather Aldersey ◽  
Walter Wittich ◽  
Mansha Mirza ◽  
Marcia Finlayson
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
International Classification Of Functioning ◽  
Rehabilitation Service ◽  
Rehabilitation Services ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Rehabilitation Professionals ◽  
Communication Challenges ◽  
Major Factors

Evidence to inform rehabilitation service delivery for individuals with deafblindness, especially in the Indian context, is inadequate. Rehabilitation professionals often find it challenging to design rehabilitation interventions that promote participation for those with deafblindness. Therefore, our purpose was to understand the contextual factors that influence the participation of individuals with deafblindness in India from the perspectives of those who are involved in providing rehabilitation services to them. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) as a framework, we conducted two focus group discussions with 16 rehabilitation service providers in India. We used a content analysis approach to examine the data. Rehabilitation service providers perceived participation barriers to be linked primarily to the social environment. Specifically, participants identified four major factors acting as barriers, including (a) lack of awareness about deafblindness; (b) negative attitudes and stigma associated with disability; (c) lack of access to resources such as assistive technology and interpreter support; and (d) communication challenges associated with severe impairments. Facilitators include accessibility of the built environment for multisensory impairments, affordable technology, provision of an interpreter and personal support worker, and training on deafblindness for professionals. The participation of individuals with deafblindness could be enhanced by identifying and removing environmental barriers and improving knowledge about deafblindness among rehabilitation professionals for proper identification, assessment, and access to rehabilitation services.

Workload, workplace violence and harassment, and well-being of personal support workers in home and community care

2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-335
Author(s):  
Firat K. Sayin ◽  
Margaret Denton ◽  
Catherine Brookman ◽  
Sharon Davies ◽  
Isik U. Zeytinoglu
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Workplace Violence ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Home And Community Care ◽  
Personal Support Workers ◽  
Intrinsic Job Satisfaction

Demand for home and community care services has continuously increased in Canada and elsewhere in the last few decades due to aging of the population and healthcare policy changes shaped by budgetary limitations. As a result, home and community care organizations are having trouble hiring adequate numbers of healthcare workers to meet the escalating demand, the result being increased workload on these workers. Another stream of literature has shown that care recipients and their family members, frustrated with the limited ability of healthcare workers to provide adequate care because of increased workload, might resort to violence and harassment. Bringing these two streams of literature together, we examined the relationships among three variables : workload ; workplace violence and harassment ; and well-being of personal support workers (PSWs). Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed a 2015 Ontario-wide survey of 1,347 PSWs employed in the home and community care sector. The results indicate that workload is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction, and this relationship is mediated by violence and harassment and by stress. Specifically, workload is positively associated with violence and harassment at work, which in turn is positively associated with stress, which in turn is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction. Our study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of a work environment factor, workload, on the well-being of PSWs. This approach makes it possible to expand the current literature’s focus on psychological processes at the individual level to a more contextual approach. Furthermore, the results have important implications for home and community care organizations as well as for the healthcare sector in general. The well-being of PSWs is critical to retaining them and to ensuring the quality of care they provide their clients. Thus, their workload should be lowered to a more manageable level to help minimize the violence and harassment they experience.

The evolving role of the personal support worker in home care in O ntario, C anada

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Saari ◽  
Erin Patterson ◽  
Shawna Kelly ◽  
Ann E. Tourangeau
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Personal Support

Self-directed Support: Impact of Hiring Practices on Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Families

2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (6) ◽  
pp. 464-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Heller ◽  
Catherine K. Arnold ◽  
Lieke van Heumen ◽  
Elizabeth L. McBride ◽  
Alan Factor
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Agency Staff ◽  
Personal Assistance ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Choice Making ◽  
Personal Assistance Services ◽  
Personal Support Workers ◽  
Waiver Program

Abstract The study examined the differential experiences and outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families receiving self-directed services based on the type of personal support worker hired (parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, and agency staff). The sample consisted of 372 participants in a self-directed waiver program who used personal assistance services. Results indicated that the caregiver's satisfaction with the personal support worker, self-efficacy in managing personal support workers, and mental health varied significantly based on type of personal support worker hired. Also, the physical health and daily choice making of the adults with disabilities differed significantly by type of personal support worker hired.

scholarly journals Free to be: Experiences of arts-based relational caring in a community living and thriving with dementia

Dementia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 147130122110270
Author(s):  
Christine Jonas-Simpson ◽  
Gail Mitchell ◽  
Sherry Dupuis ◽  
Lesley Donovan ◽  
Pia Kontos
Keyword(s):  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Creative Arts ◽  
Support Worker ◽  
Personal Support ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Van Manen ◽  
Phenomenological Methodology ◽  
Qualitative Phenomenological

Aim To present findings about experiences of relational caring at an arts-based academy for persons living with dementia. Background There is a compelling call and need for connection and relationships in communities living with dementia. This study shares what is possible when a creative arts-based academy for persons living with dementia grounded in relational inquiry and caring focuses on relationships through the medium of the arts. Design A qualitative phenomenological methodology (informed by van Manen) was used to answer the research question, “What is it like to experience relational caring at an arts-based academy for persons living with dementia?” We address two research objectives: (1) to explore how relationships are experienced when a relational caring philosophy underpins practice, including arts-based engagements; and (2) to understand the meaning of relationships that bring quality to day-to-day living. Methods Twenty-five participants were recruited from the Academy and interviewed in one-to-one in-depth interviews or small groups. Participants included five persons living with dementia, eight family members, four staff, five artists, one personal support worker, and two volunteers. Participants were asked to describe their experiences of relational caring or relationships in the Academy space. Findings Three thematic patterns emerged, which address the research objectives. Relational caring is experienced when: freedom and fluid engagement inspire a connected spontaneous liveliness; embracing difference invites discovery and generous inclusivity; and mutual affection brings forth trust and genuine expression. Conclusions Findings contribute to the growing body of knowledge about both relational caring and arts-based practices that call forth a different ethic of care—one that is relational, inclusive, and intentional. Findings also shed light on what is possible when a relational caring philosophy underpins arts-based practices—everyone thrives.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Impact of State Policy Interventions for LGBT Aging: Comparative Case Study of New York and California

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 674-674
Author(s):  
Austin Oswald ◽  
Nancy Giunta ◽  
Tim Johnston ◽  
Sherrill Wayland
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Sensitivity Training ◽  
Attitudinal Differences ◽  
Group Interest ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lgbt Aging

Abstract The majority of aging network service providers are unprepared to deliver targeted services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) older adults. In 2017, California legislature mandated ongoing LGBT sensitivity training for congregate living providers. Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) developed a specialized training, Creating Inclusive Communities, for congregate living staff to learn the unique needs of LGBT elders. This secondary data analysis compared pre-test knowledge and attitudes of training participants in two states, one mandating LGBT aging sensitivity training (California, N=328) and one without the mandate (New York, N=622). Preliminary results show that prior to receiving training, California participants demonstrate significantly less knowledge of LGBT aging issues compared to New York participants; t(948)=-3.808, p<.001. Attitudinal differences were also demonstrated. These results suggest that laws mandating LGBT sensitivity training may help reach providers with greater training needs. Policy and practice implications will be discussed. Part of a symposium sponsored by Rainbow Research Group Interest Group.

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