Thursday March 11, 2010
 
Dear Older Workers Workgroup,
 
Thank you for your continuing interest and efforts in our discussion about future activities related to the follow-up from our conference about occupational health for older home care workers.  We have had great interaction, shared resources and moved forward on exploring future activities.
 
At our last monthly meeting we agreed to check back with our organizations to determine our commitments to the feasibility of future projects.  Here is a summary of where things stand:
 
1. Our most recent discussions have pointed us towards doing an event related to ethics in aging, care giving and the home care workforce. One idea is to convene a webinar in which Martha Holstein and other colleagues (to be determined) would have a panel discussion about these important issues. The potential audience could include the diverse group of people who were invited to attend last September’s conference. Given current budgetary realities and other time commitments which impact all of us, it might be advantageous to think about planning such an event for the late fall of 2010 or sometime next year.
 
2.  At this point instead of convening monthly meetings to discuss such a project we propose continuing our conversation about an ethics event and other future activities on the Center for Long-Term Care blog (http://hmprg.typepad.com/health-medicine-hmprg/longterm-care-posts.html), which Kristen Pavle of Health & Medicine Policy Research Group has organized. To post comments, scroll to the bottom of the website.
 
3. We also propose continuing to use the Older Workers Website, located on the Center for Long-Term Care’s webpage to update one another about news/projects/resources at: http://hmprg.org/older-workers-workgroup/.  For example, Marsha Love and Joe Zanoni are now working on a train-the-trainer program with SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana home care workers on pandemic flu prevention. We would be pleased to let you all know how this progresses.
 
We trust that when key budget issues are decided later this year and when additional resources are available, that we may all be able to make firmer commitments to plan future activities together.  In the meantime, we welcome your feedback on these proposals for the functioning of our group and for future project ideas and hope you will blog in periodically with news of your activities.
 
Sincerely:  Kristen Pavle and Joe Zanoni (Working Group Convenors)

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The Older Workers Workgroup was formed after Health & Medicine Policy Research Group and the Great Lakes Centers for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health co-sponsored the “Older Healthcare Workers Conference” on Tuesday September 29, 2009.  Interest in becoming a part of a Workgroup after the conference was noted and a group of individuals joined together to form the Workgroup.

The Workgroup meets monthly through conference calls and in-person meetings to discuss important topics affecting older workers.  With the growth of the aging population, and many older adults continuing, or returning, to work, the Workgroup focuses on:
1.) Recruitment & Retention
2.) Training
3.) Workplace Design & Accommodating Workers with Disabilities
4.) Wellness & Health Promotion
5.) Workplace Policies and Legislative Initiatives.

Older Workers Workgroup Profiles

Follow-up Materials from the Older Workers Conference 2009

Journal and News Articles

Photos from the Older Workers Conference 2009

Link to the HMPRG Blog Sub-page on Long-Term Care Issues