This is the first of three articles about Workforce Development in Aging Services.  The focus of the articles will encompass three pillars:

1. Adopting Best Practices to Retain the Current Workforce

2. Creating Non-Traditional Growth and Advancement Pathways

3. Cultivating the Next Generation Aging Services Workforce

This topic is of great importance due to the national and global caregiving crisis for both paid and unpaid caregivers.  This series will focus only on paid caregivers, with an acknowledgement that the unpaid caregiver crisis impacts the need and demand for more paid caregivers. 

Pillar 1: Best Practices to Maintain the Current Workforce

Let's begin the discussion about the Aging Services Workforce by acknowledging that there are many wonderful and committed people caring for elders throughout the continuum of care- 3.7 million according to this LeadingAge Vision White Paper.

Sadly, the massive turnover experienced in this industry will keep the rotating door busy, without even considering the increasing demand due to the aging population.  

So, before addressing the need for new entrants, we should begin with discussing strategies to retain our current employees.  The LeadingAge Vision White Paper above provides an excellent roadmap of six strategies to build workforce and my intent with this series is to enhance the conversation by approaching the issue of retention from other angles.  

There are many definitions of threshold that are worth discussing before we jump to the meat of how it relates to dementia training.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Institute on Aging states, "abuse can happen to anyone-no matter the person's age, sex, race, religion, or ethnic or cultural background.  Each year, hundreds of thousands of adults over the age of 60 are abused, neglected, or financially exploited.  This is called elder abuse.