HCWs in NYC
Designing for Peer-Led Critical Pedagogies in Computer-Mediated Support Groups for Home Care Workers
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 …
Computer-Mediated Sharing Circles for Intersectional Peer Support with Home Care Workers
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: …
Development and Piloting of a Community-Partnered Heart Failure Training Course for Home Health Care Workers
Despite their unique contributions to heart failure (HF) care, home healthcare workers (HHWs) have unmet educational needs. To address this, we used a community-partnered approach to develop and pilot a HF training course for HHWs. We evaluated the course on feasibility, acceptability, and …
Can Peer Mentors Help Address the Direct Care Workforce Shortage?
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 …
Computer-Mediated Peer Support Needs of Home Care Workers: Emotional Labor & the Politics of Professionalism
Home care workers (HCWs) provide in-home care services but feel underappreciated and isolated. 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 work. In this study, we explore how HCWs value and …
Designing Technology to Meet the Peer Support Needs of Home Care Workers
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.
'I’m beyond terrified': For Home Care Workers, COVID-19 Is a Health Crisis and Economic One
“It’s a story of a vulnerable workforce caring for a vulnerable population, and what happens in COVID,” said Dr. Madeline Sterling, an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, and one of the few researchers to study how COVID-19 has affected home care workers. “These are folks who …
Experiences of Home Health Care Workers in New York City During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic
We describe the experiences of home health care workers (HCWs) caring for older adults and for patients with chronic illnesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this qualitative study of 33 HCWs employed by 24 unique home care agencies across New York City, participants reported that they were …