An evaluation of the Homecare Aide Workforce Initiative (HAWI), a new, multi-year, foundation-funded training and employment initiative for home health aides serving thousands of older adults in New York City, finds that the aides who graduated from the program were more satisfied with their jobs and more likely to stay on them.
HAWI was designed to improve the skills, job satisfaction, and retention of the entry-level home health aide workforce as a strategy for improving the quality of home care for older adults. The project was implemented in 2013 at three New York City-based UJA-Federation of New York home care agencies with lead funding from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and UJA-Federation.
More than 500 newly hired home health aides graduated from HAWI. Of the graduates, 228 completed a 3- month follow-up survey. Ninety-one percent were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with their jobs. The newly trained home health aides also had “demonstrably higher” retention rates at three months compared to the retention rate of aides who were hired prior to the HAWI implementation period as well as aides who were hired during the implementation period but did not have HAWI training.
Home care aide turnover plagues the home care industry with one of two home care aides leaving the job each year. Turnover is both costly to home care agencies and compromises the quality of care for consumers.
Learn more about the findings here.
