Training for Home Health Workers in the Time of COVID-19

Home care is a notoriously difficult – yet vastly undervalued and underpaid – job in the best of times. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how the work of home health aides is truly essential for the wellbeing of our communities. Despite how critical home health work is, existing education and training falls short of preparing workers for the safety and care protocol needed in these times. How do we ensure our home care aide workforce has the knowledge and training it needs to successfully care for people during this difficult time? The Service Employees International Union 775 Benefits Group has ideas to share.

As a labor-management partnership formed between employers and the SEIU 775 union, SEIU 775 Benefits Group is improving the skills and sustainability of over 45,000 long-term caregivers in Washington through high-value health benefits, secure retirement, and comprehensive training, with a focus on credentialing and workforce development.

The SEIU 775 Benefits Group’s COVID-19 training is available at no cost for home care aides represented by SEIU 775. No aide will pay a cent to get access to this critical information. In fact, those who need continuing education hours are actually paid to complete the training. While some ed tech firms have developed their own COVID-19 training for frontline workers, individual home care aides often have to pay to enroll. That’s not a fair setup for those workers whose job isn’t high paying and are putting themselves at risk to carry out their jobs right now.

Of course, experts are learning more about the novel coronavirus with each new day. That means training needs to continuously change, too. As new information comes in, the content of SEIU 775 Benefits Group’s training is adjusted to be up to date with new training already in development. Washington state has been helpful in ensuring the quality of content as well, with the Department of Social and Health Services vetting all training materials in partnership with home care employers throughout the state.

The COVID-19 readiness courses that SEIU 775 Benefits Group offers are offered live—or synchronously—so home care aides can tune in, ask questions, and engage in real-time discussions. This synchronous training also means that each new session can be adjusted to accommodate for new knowledge about the virus. Home care aides can choose from sessions on a variety of days and times each week, offered in multiple languages.

And that’s just the formal training available. SEIU 775 Benefits Group has been offering Facebook live events with experts to answer home care aides’ questions about COVID-19, as well as offering static social media posts, curated online resources, and updates from the CDC and other trusted organizations regarding new knowledge about the virus and how to fight it.

Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the home care aide workforce (infections, exhaustion, lack of proper PPE, training, etc.), there is an understandable desire to create rapid cycle training and credentialing. But as of right now, there’s no federally- or state- recognized training for COVID-19 preparedness, primarily because the situation is so fluid.With things changing every day, we know this much: workers will need much more than a quick one-and-done training session and a certificate handed to them at the end to meet the challenges the pandemic presents.

“In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, powerful social movements for racial justice, and an economic crisis, innovative labor solutions with proven track records of success in supporting the interests of workers and employers – such as the SEIU 775 Benefits Group – are exceedingly important,” says Daniel Bustillo, Executive Director of the Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP), a national organization of unions and employers working to bring the voice of healthcare workers to the national conversation on workforce development and training in the healthcare industry.

The training piece presented a real challenge during the emergence of COVID-19, but SEIU 775 Benefits Group is making good on its commitment to keeping home care aides as prepared as possible to confront everything their work requires. According to Abby Solomon, Executive Director of the SEIU 775 Benefits Group, “Home care aides are today’s front line heroes, taking care of our most vulnerable. It’s SEIU 775 Benefits Group’s job to equip them with the best skills, knowledge and support to do so safely and with confidence, ensuring both their health and their client’s.” These essential workers deserve accessible, high-quality support and training, and SEIU 775 is delivering for them.

Ensuring home care aides are well-supported and equipped with needed skills and knowledge is especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic. SEIU 775 Benefits Group offers a blueprint for others to engage with the home care aide workforce through high-quality labor-management sponsored training.

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