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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The providers' profile of the disability support workforce in New Zealand | | Author(s) | Diane Jorgensen, Matthew Parsons, Michelle Gundersen Reid |
| Journal title | Health and Social Care in the Community, vol 17, no 4, July 2009 |
| Pages | pp 396-405 |
| Source | http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/hsc |
| Keywords | Physical disabilities ; Care support workers ; District nurses ; Employees ; Training [welfare work] ; Social surveys ; New Zealand. |
| Annotation | To understand one of the predominant groups supporting people with disabilities and illness, this study examined the profile of New Zealand paid caregivers, including their training needs. Paid caregivers - also known as healthcare assistants, caregivers and home health aides - work across several long-term care settings, such as residential homes, continuing-care hospitals and also private homes. Their roles include assisting with personal care and household management. New Zealand, similar to other countries, is facing a health workforce shortage. A three-phased design was used: phase I, a survey of all home-based and residential care providers (N = 942, response rate = 45%); phase II, a targeted survey of training needs (n = 107, response = 100%); phase III, four focus groups and 14 interviews with 36 providers, exploring themes arising from phases I and II. Findings on 17,910 paid caregivers revealed a workforce predominantly female (94%), aged between 40 and 50, with 6% over the age of 60 earning a mean hourly rate of pay that is just above minimum pay rates and doing 24 hours per week. The national paid caregiver turnover was 29% residential care and 39% community. Most providers recognised the importance of training, but felt their paid caregivers were not adequately trained. Training was poorly attended; reasons cited were funding, family, secondary employment, staff turnover, low pay and few incentives. The paid caregiver profile described reflects trends also observed in other countries. There is a clear policy direction in New Zealand and other countries to support people with a disability at home, and yet the workforce which is facilitating this vision is itself highly vulnerable. Paid caregivers have minimum pay, are female, work part-time and although it is recognised that training is important for them, they do not attend, so consequently remain untrained. (KJ/RH) |
| Accession Number | CPA-090619206 A |
| Classmark | BN: QRS: QTG: WK: QW: 3F: 7YN |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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