I am asking that neighbors who are use Medicaid Personal Care and Respite Providers provide feedback to the governor and our legislators about proposals to increase the number of required training hours for these providers. This request was recently made by the Arc of King County of their Parent Coalition Members and I am asking for general public response to gain support for the many Developmentally Disabled Family members who provide in-home care for their relatives. Medicaid Personal Care providers also provide services for the aged in addition to those who are developmentally disabled.

In the 2007 state legislative session, Service Employees International Union introduced House Bill 2284, "an act relating to the training of and collective bargaining over the training of care providers."

In the initial bill, Service Employees International Union proposed 150 hours of required training for all Medicaid Personal Care and Respite providers. Later it was changed to 85 hours. Because of the significant cost of this proposal, it initially did not make it through the committee process. (The current training requirement is 28 hours and 10 hours continuing education for individual providers. Training of parent providers of Medicaid Personal Care has been a one-time only six hours training with the additional Safety Training and a 30-minute Service Employees International Union presentation.) On the last days of the 2007 legislative session, the bill was resurrected and it passed as a Study Bill - Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 2284. You can find this final bill and bill reports at: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2284

The anticipated cost of the current proposal is $ 85 million dollars.

Nursing Homes, hospitals, hospice agencies, other acute care settings, adult day care and day health care centers are excluded from the expanded training bill. The increased training requirement applies to parent providers who only provide for their own adult child, "intermittent providers" that parents hire to care for their son/daughter, Adult Family Home workers, respite care providers and other long term care workers.

ESSHB 2284 calls for a Worker Training Work Group connected to the Long Term Care Task Force set up by the Legislature for other issues. The Worker Training Work Group is charged with making recommendations on the amount of training, the content of the core and basic training and the certification of the long term care workers. You can view this report and make comments on the web site by going to www.governor.wa.gov/LTCTF/workgroup.htm. The Task Force must submit a final report to the legislature by Dec. 30.

I have personally requested that training requirements above the currently required six hour Developmentally Disabled curriculum for family members who provide in-home living for the developmentally disabled be eliminated

Furthermore, I asked that paid in-home training conducted by a Developmentally Disabled client family member or guardian by used as satisfaction of training requirements for caregivers who are not a career path track in the medical industry. My own experience and that of other family members is the current training is inappropriate (it addresses issues for the aged) and that it takes an additional 40-80 hours to train one care giver in the particular needs of a Developmentally Disabled client.

E-mails should be sent to David Rolf, president of the Service Employees International Union, david.rolf@seiu775.org; our three state legislators (you can find them by going to: www.leg.wa.gov.); Governor Gregoire, gregoire.christine @wa.gov; and Representative Dawn Morrell, (chair, Long Term Care Work Group), morrell.dawn@leg.wa.gov .

Representative Cody who is the chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee is very attentive to these issues and public feedback. She can e-mailed at cody.eileen@leg.wa.gov.

Thank you for advocating for those who are unable to advocate for themselves.

Joan Bateman,

Seaview