Home care workers (HCWs) deliver essential health services within patients' homes, yet, they are a marginalized workforce vulnerable to exploitation. Critical and liberatory pedagogies can foster material social change, but such pedagogies typically assume the involvement of a professional facilitator when, in practice, support programs are often led by peers with little to no facilitation training. This paper explores how peers can perform critical and liberatory facilitation practice in an online support program.
Home care workers (HCWs) provide essential care in patients' homes but are often underappreciated and work in stressful and isolated environments with diverse and intersecting support needs. This paper describes a computer-mediated peer support program that centers around sharing circles: spaces for personal, narrative storytelling to encourage HCWs to collaboratively reflect on their home care experiences and build rapport and shared identity with their peers. Our findings show that participants engaged in multiple types of peer support, and we discuss how computer-mediated programs can address diverse needs that occur in intersectional contexts.
Awarded a **Recognition for Contribution to Diversity & Inclusion**.
For direct care workers, the first few weeks on the job can be challenging—and the most crucial to their retention. A recent study by Poon et al. confirms that formal peer mentorship programs, a critical component of PHI’s workforce interventions, help both new and incumbent workers navigate the significant learning curve, emotional demands, and marginalization faced in care work.
Home care workers (HCWs) provide in-home care services but feel underappreciated and isolated on the job. Leveraging the support of peers is one way to empower HCWs, but there are barriers to doing so due to the distributed nature of home care worker. In this study, we explore how HCWs value and conceptualize peer support, especially around needs of performing emotional labor and professionalization, and provide design implications for technology-enabled peer support.
Awarded a **Recognition for Contribution to Diversity & Inclusion**.
Home care workers care for at risk populations but feel under-supported themselves. How can HCWs support each other while isolated in patients' homes? We worked with HCWs to design tech that can connect workers with each other.