HCAOA The Voice Summer 2020

THROUGHOUT THE PANDEMIC, the home care industry has come forward in droves to advocate for the industry’s future. Over 7,300 home care agency workers came forward to send nearly 25,000 messages to members of Congress to demand that home care be recognized as health care in all phases of the federal response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and a further thousand-plus send messages to advocate for frontline caregiver protections in the next phase of relief spending. Most recently, we’ve been working to demonstrate all the ways that caregivers protect their clients and prevent the spread of COVID-19. One of the ways we’ve done this is through the Power of Five campaign. The campaign seeks to amplify the five things that caregiv - ers can do to protect their clients and protect the spread of COVID-19: wash hands, disinfect surfaces, check clients for fever or symptoms daily, maintain a safe distance, and check in regularly. We commu - nicate this power through photos on the HCAOA social media feeds using the image of a heart in a hand—illustrating that the power to protect and prevent rests in all of our hands. The Association and its members also put out a call to caregivers to demonstrate the nationwide impact that caregivers can have in the fight against COVID. We collected over 300 images from caregivers from around the country. Members stepped forward to donate money so that we could buy 100 caregivers lunch in April. Our members have taken that goodwill, and begun to drive direct advocacy for caregivers, the front line workers in the fight against COVID. Members have stepped forward to identify themselves as Caregiver Super Advocates—this includes reaching out to their Senators and Representatives to request a new Power of 5 to provide needed aid to home care workers: 1. Enhanced pay and recruitment incentives for home care workers 2. Benefits for child care 3. Priority for PPE 4. Enhanced Medicaid and other government programs’ support 5. Qualified liability immunity for home care agencies At publication time, the HEORES Act is still being debated in the Senate. Now is the time that home care managers and owners should become Caregiver Super Advocates by contacting their member of Congress to spotlight the critical work being done by our caregivers to protect older Americans and individuals with disabilities and to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Agencies and Caregivers Come Together to Advocate for Home Care and Demonstrate The Power of Five Becoming a Caregiver Super Advocate is Easy! 1 32 Get others involved! Share our letter template with your employees or others in your organization or agency, and have them reach out to their representatives too! Be a Caregiver Super Advocate: Send a picture of yourself holding up your hand (palm facing the camera) in support of our Power of 5 campaign. You can email your picture to: hcaoa@powersagency.com. Also in the email, please include your name, the name of your company, and the number of Caregivers you employ. We’ll share these on our website and other advocacy efforts and your name will be added to the HCAOA’s Caregiver Super Advocate Honor Roll. Prepare a letter to your representatives in Congress. You can find our letter template here , and the emails for your U.S. Senators and Representatives here. MEMBER NEWS 11 Spring/Summer 2020