By Geralyn Magan
A LeadingAge California initiative aims to address workforce shortages in care and services for older adults. LTSS Center researchers will evaluate whether it’s working.
The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston has been selected to evaluate a three-year initiative designed to actively promote, recruit, train, and provide jobs for 2,700 new certified nursing assistants (CNA) and home health aides (HHA) in California.
The Gateway-In Project© is supported by a $25 million grant awarded to LeadingAge California by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI). The program offers training, wrap-around supports, and incentives for career development to those entering or already in the field of long-term services and supports (LTSS). Participants in the free program must be at least 16 years of age, have valid identification and legal work status, and be physically able to carry out caregiving tasks.
More older adults live in California than in any other state in the nation. It is projected that an additional 275,000 direct care professionals will be needed by 2026 to meet the needs of this growing population. CNAs and HHAs are a critical part of this workforce, with over 50% of CNAs in California serving older adults in nursing or community-based care settings.
The Gateway-In Project© helps individuals join the LTSS workforce by:
- Covering full tuition fees for education and training.
- Providing wraparound supports, including childcare, transportation, food, and related training costs.
- Helping students find jobs after they graduate and pass their state certification exams.
- Offering retention bonuses to graduates who are employed for one, six, and 12 months.
Graduates of The Gateway-In Project© must work for at least one year in a home and community-based provider setting after they pass the state certification exam. The Gateway-In Project© team offers comprehensive support to its graduates in their job search. This includes exam preparation, resources for crafting resumes and preparing for interviews, updates on local job fairs, assistance in fostering professional growth and success, networking opportunities with employers in the program’s provider network, and access to LeadingAge California’s online career center.
“The importance of The Gateway-In Project© cannot be understated,” said Jeannee Parker Martin, president & CEO of LeadingAge California. “Older adult care facilities and home and community-based settings are facing severe workforce shortages. The Gateway-In Project© will begin to change that story by cultivating the next generation of CNAs and HHAs as well as supporting those already in the field.”
EVALUATION PLAN
The LTSS Center will evaluate The Gateway-In Project© in collaboration with LeadingAge California. The evaluation began July 1 and will run through June 30, 2025. Researchers will examine three areas:
Program interest, impact, and career development. For the cohort of students who begin their training in October, November, and December 2023, researchers will determine factors associated with:
- Perceived effects of program participation on students’ lives and career development plans.
- Challenges and barriers that students experience.
- Whether the experiences of The Gateway-In Project© students differ from students who were in the same training programs but were not a part of the project.
Program success. Researchers will evaluate:
- How wraparound services and incentives affected training completion, job placement, and employment retention rates.
- The value of wraparound services and incentives for program success, as perceived by The Gateway-In Project© students.
- Students’ reasons for dropping out of the program and factors perceived as helpful for completing the program.
- The employment status of students who participated in the program during its first year.
Students’ views of working with older adults in home and community-based settings serving older adults. Researchers will document:
- Students’ general views of older adults.
- Students’ views of and interest in working with older adults.
- Changes in these views after students completed the program.
To gather data for their evaluation, researchers will use online surveys and one-on-one interviews with current and former students in The Gateway-In Project© and with a comparison group of students who completed a CNA/HHA training program but are not part of the project. The team will also interview 20 students in The Gateway-In Project© who dropped out of the program. Researchers will examine students’ perceptions of the training, the challenges they encountered, the reasons they dropped out, and the support that might have helped them complete the program.