Technical Assistance

The DCW Strategies Center delivers training and technical assistance (TA) to build capacity and drive systems change in the recruitment, training, and retention of the direct care workforce. This TA is intended for state agencies, employers, educational institutions, advocacy groups, and program administrators.

   HHS press release on strengthening the workforce

DCW Intensive TA to States 

This opportunity provides up to 250 hours of individualized TA to six cross-agency state teams. States will be assigned a TA coach and have access to subject matter experts to support them in addressing their state’s unique needs. State teams will work to complete individualized systems-change TA plans aimed at improving direct care workforce recruiting, development, and retention through reforms in policy, practice, programming, payment, and performance. 

Learn more about the TA opportunity and the selected states.

DCW State Peer-Learning Collaboratives 

The DCW Strategies Center will facilitate three DCW State Peer-Learning Collaboratives focused on sharing best practices, innovative strategies, and proven models for growing the direct care workforce. In addition, each participating state will receive up to 70 hours of individual technical assistance on a topic or issue important to the state. Each state is expected to accomplish one policy or program-related milestone as a result of participating in a collaborative.

Learn more about the collaboratives and the selected states.

TA Webinar Series

Using Marketing Campaigns to Expand & Advance the Direct Care Workforce: The WisCaregiver Careers Experience (July 2024)
  TA webinar recording with slides and ASL
This webinar highlights Wisconsin's WisCaregiver Careers program, a successful initiative that uses targeted marketing to recruit, train, and retain direct care workers. This engaging session provides insight into how marketing campaigns can effectively support the growth and retention of the direct care workforce and covers integrating campaigns with broader workforce initiatives, such as education and certification, while emphasizing the importance of including individuals with lived experience.

Workforce Investment Systems 101: Engaging with State Workforce Systems – Learning the Language to Build Partnerships (June 2024)
  TA webinar recording with slides and ASL
State direct care workforce systems change initiatives benefit from a strong partnership between the state’s workforce development system and the state’s Medicaid and home and community-based service agencies. This webinar will provide an overview of common workforce terminology, the role of a state workforce board, federal and state workforce funding vehicles, and insight into state workforce investment systems' determination of high growth industries to prioritize in sector-based career pathway development.

Call-to-Action for Building the Home and Community-Based Services Workforce Data Infrastructure (May 2024)
  TA webinar recording with slides and ASL | TA webinar slides
In response to President Biden’s Executive Order on Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and Supporting Caregivers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reviewed available data on the home and community-based services (HCBS) workforce and identified opportunities to augment and improve existing resources. Accurate, timely data is critical to answering key questions about the workforce and driving data-informed policy decisions to improve the quality of and access to HCBS for millions of Americans. Additional data are needed to better understand the workforce and emerging trends, and to quantify linkages between workforce investments and quality outcomes, both for workers and individuals receiving services. Filling these gaps requires engagement from many entities, including the federal government, states, the research community, non-profits, and private sector businesses, who all have an important role to play in building this data infrastructure. In this webinar, HHS and DOL will present their recommendations to improve data about the HCBS workforce, and a non-federal panel of leaders and innovators in the field will discuss these recommendations and share innovations.

Addressing the Shortage: The Current State of the Direct Care Workforce (April 2024)
  TA webinar recording with slides and ASL | TA webinar slides
The DCW Strategies Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center host this webinar on the critical issue of the workforce shortage, current policy initiatives, and solutions to address it. This event offers an understanding of the critical role that the workforce plays in community living and the challenges that the shortage has created. A panel of experts discusses cultivating supportive environments, expanding the direct care workforce, and improving data collection. The panel also covers strategies and initiatives the federal government and state governments have developed to address the shortage.

Federal Action to Address the Direct Care Workforce Crisis (March 2024)
  TA webinar recording with speakers and ASL | Event TA webinar recording with speakers and slides | TA webinar slides
Low wages, lack of benefits, limited opportunities for career growth, and other factors have resulted in a long-standing shortage of critical professionals who provide care. That shortage has become a dire crisis; today, more than three-quarters of service providers are declining new participants, and more than half are cutting services. As a result, people who need assistance often have no option except to move to a nursing home or other institution; people who want to leave these facilities cannot; and the health and safety of those who live in the community are put at risk. This webinar features speakers across the federal government leadership discussing current federal initiatives to address the direct care workforce crisis.