The Personal and Home Care Aide State Training (PHCAST) program supported the development, evaluation, and demonstration of a competency-based and uniform curriculum to train qualified personal and home care aides.
Walter R. McDonald and Associates Inc. and the LeadingAge Center for Applied Research received with a grant from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to design and implement a national evaluation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Personal and Home Care Aide State Training (PHCAST) program. PHCAST supports the development, evaluation, and demonstration of a competency-based and uniform curriculum to train qualified personal and home care aides.
The national evaluation will assess the following outcomes specified in the ACA for the PHCAST program:
- Assess the impact of states’ core competencies training programs on job satisfaction of trainees, trainees’ mastery of job skills acquired through the training, direct care recipient and family caregiver satisfaction with services received, and other relevant measures identified by HRSA.
- Assess the impact of providing the core competencies training on the existing training infrastructure and resources available to states for training personal and home care aides.
- Assess the minimum number of hours of initial training that should be required for personal and home care aides.
Six states received PHCAST grants. California, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and North Carolina are using their PHCAST grants to design and operate demonstration projects that develop and implement curricula and certification programs and to improve their infrastructure for the training. The demonstrations seek to strengthen the direct care workforce by ensuring that personal and home care aides trained through PHCAST can bring their acquired skills to any job market in the country.
The national evaluation will provide findings about the ACA outcomes for the PHCAST program as a whole. It will also describe differences among the states’ programs and associated outcomes, taking into account the State environments within which the programs operate.