Working in partnership with government, schools, workforce development and community organizations, Mass Senior Care and its members promote and develop strategies to recruit, educate and retain the highest quality long term care workforce. To learn more about how to develop workforce partnerships, please click here.
- Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs)
Massachusetts’ 16 local WIBs, whose members include employers, higher education, labor, and government representatives, guide local decision-making in prioritizing and allocating federal and state resources for new and incumbent worker training. The State Workforce Investment Board (SWIB) advises the Governor on building a strong workforce development system aligned with state educational policies and economic development goals. Mass Senior Care serves on the SWIB and the Massachusetts Workforce Board Association, while individual Mass Senior Care members serve on their local WIBs.
- Extended Care Career Ladder Initiative (ECCLI)
Since 2001, over 170 long term care employers, including nearly one-third of Massachusetts nursing homes, have developed career ladders through the state-funded ECCLI, resulting in new skills, increased wages, and opportunities for professional advancement for over 9,000 direct care workers. ECCLI grants also support wrap around services, including supervisory training, adult basic education, and bridge to nursing programs.
- Massachusetts Senior Care Foundation Scholarship Program
Mass Senior Care Foundation’s annual scholarship program supports current long term care staff seeking to further their education and careers in long term care. Since 1987, the Foundation has awarded over $2 million in scholarships, benefiting over 1,200 employees.
- CNA/HHA Scholarship Program
Since 2001, Mass Senior Care has administered the state-funded CNA/HHA (also known as the Direct Care Worker Training) Scholarship Program, which has provided free CNA/HHA training to nearly 4,400 people across the state to prepare them to enter the senior care workforce. Training providers include community colleges and community-based organizations. Funding is currently frozen due to state budget cuts.
Long Term Care Nursing Shortage Work Groups
The Massachusetts Senior Care Foundation first convened two regionally-based groups (Eastern and Western) in 2003 to begin to address the critical shortage of nurses in long term care. Semi-annual group meetings provide a forum to identify and collaborate on strategies to address barriers that impede the recruitment and retention of nurses in long term care. These meetings also facilitate networking among members that has resulted in valuable new partnerships.
- Long Term Care Nursing Day
For the past five years, Mass Senior Care has sponsored “Long Term Care Nursing Day- Explore the Possibilities,” designed to educate nursing students and faculty about the opportunities and rewards associated with long term care nursing. The event features a keynote presentation, job fair/networking event and faculty and student workshops. Mass Senior Care members sponsor transportation for participating LPN and RN programs. Over 1,200 nursing students and faculty from 21 nursing programs across Massachusetts attended the April 2009 event.
- CAN DO – Collaboration for the Advancement of Nursing: Developing Opportunities
The CAN DO Partnership is a unique collaboration between education, healthcare providers, workforce development agencies and local foundations working to eliminate the western Massachusetts nursing workforce shortage. Collectively these institutions are redesigning the region’s nursing education system to provide an adequate supply of diverse, culturally proficient nurses who deliver quality care to all who need nursing.
- Massachusetts Nursing and Allied Health Initiative
The Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Nursing and Allied Health Initiative seeks to address the nursing shortage through partnerships that increase the number of nursing faculty, improve the capacity in public higher education nursing programs, and meet the future demands for health care personnel. Mass Senior Care assists in developing and implementing the strategic goals of the program as a member of the Initiative’s Steering Committee. On June 16, 2009 Mass Senior Care Foundation and the Foundation for Home Care, with funding provided under the MA Department of Higher Education’s Nursing and Allied Health Initiative, convened a symposium, “Strengthening Partnerships- Enhancing Options for Clinical Placements in Long Term Care And Home Health Care Settings” in which leaders from nursing education, practice and policy examined and made recommendations to improve nursing clinical placements in order to increase the state’s capacity to educate nurses who are better prepared and more likely to care for older adults in these settings.
- English Works Campaign
As a steering committee member of the English Works Campaign, a unique coalition of immigrant community leaders, educators, business and civic leaders and labor unions, Mass Senior Care advocates for increased public and private resources to improve English proficiency among immigrants, enabling them to achieve economic success as well as meet the changing labor and employment demands of the state’s economy.