National Skills Coalition (NSC) — an advocacy organization focused on workforce policies — recently announced the launch of the Care Workforce Advisory Council. The council was formed to address the main challenges that currently plague the care workforce.

The Care Workforce Advisory is made up of 20 direct care industry professionals and experts, including home-based care stakeholders and leaders from organizations such as Best of Care, LeadingAge, PHI and CareAcademy. Home-based care leaders can play a pivotal role in aiding the council in its efforts, according to Robert Espinoza, CEO of NSC and a member of the council.

“Home-based care providers are a big part of the solution, and it’s why we include Kevin Smith, CEO of Best of Care, and Helen Adeosun, founder of CareAcademy,” he told Home Health Care News. “[Home-based care companies] are the employers. They are often the ones who, if they are properly financed, can do a lot for workers. They can set the right wages, they can improve their training and their advancement opportunities, and they can provide the adequate level of support that these workers need. People, like Smith, are industry leaders. They are thought leaders in their states, in their communities and nationally.”

The council plans to meet over the next four months to identify workforce development policy solutions and industry opportunities, with the hope that will lead to job improvements for direct care workers.

“The goal of this initiative is to build a case and then help advance policy reforms that engage workforce development leaders to care about these jobs — to see them valuable to working families, to see job improvements in this sector as critical, not just to their own economic mobility, but to businesses and to the economy,” Espinoza said.

The advisory board emerges at a time when the demand for long-term care services continues to rise in the U.S. In total, 8.9 million direct care roles will need to be filled due to new demand and turnover, NSC noted in a press statement.

In general, low wages, limited benefits and a lack of opportunities for career advancements are some of the most pressing issues facing the direct care workforce, according to the NSC.

“What we see is direct care and child care workers make poverty-level wages, even though their work is enormous and requires a significant amount of skill and training,” Espinoza said. “We see, for example, that they have limited access to benefits like health coverage, child care or long-term care or transportation. Those are all elements that low-wage workers need in order to really thrive on the job and in their lives. The other piece is training. We see that training requirements are not as strong as they should be.”

Looking ahead, Espinoza stressed that any solution going forward will require a partnership between the public and private sectors to be effective.

“We need the involvement of both businesses and government leaders, and we need the engagement of home care agencies, workers and recipients, to tell a fully rounded story about what is happening in this system and how we can better support home care workers, so that we all get the care we deserve,” he said.