Program Description

What is the WIN A STEP UP program?

WIN A STEP UP is a workforce intervention for nursing assistants in nursing homes in North Carolina. WIN A STEP UP aims to reduce turnover of nursing assistants through providing training, education, and rewards. The WIN A STEP UP program is based on 3 basic principles:

• Education: Education is essential for quality service in long term care and builds competence and self-esteem in the workforce.
• Compensation: Real concern about direct care workers must be reflected in their paychecks and benefits.
• Commitment: All parties who receive benefits from the program should formally agree to contribute to it and be held accountable for performance.

WIN A STEP UP is composed of a 30-hour training package, monetary payments and recognition for participating nursing assistants and nursing homes. The goals of our program are to upgrade the skill base of nursing assistants , increase their career commitment and job satisfaction, and provide rewards and recognition to participants. Through achieving these goals, we hope to decrease turnover and improve job satisfaction of nursing assistants, and enhance the quality of care for North Carolina nursing home residents.

Recent Innovations

North Carolina is the only state in the nation that has been awarded two of the Better Jobs, Better Care grants. These grants are funded from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation & The Atlantic Philanthropies. A demonstration grant was awarded to the North Carolina Foundation for Advanced Health Programs and an applied research and evaluation grant was awarded to Cecil G. Sheps Center at UNC-CH. These grants are intended to conduct workforce innovations aimed at attracting and retaining high quality paraprofessional direct care workers. More information about the Better Jobs, Better Care National Program is available at www.bjbc.org.

The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina was awarded one of the eight applied research and evaluation grants. The new study builds on the successful WIN A STEP UP program . Under the new grant, researchers will study which factors promote or obstruct successful implementation of the program. It will use the findings to improve the WIN A STEP UP program, and develop an "enhanced" program at additional sites. This “enhanced” program will adapt the nationally recognized PHI Coaching Supervision Training^SM developed by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI) in hopes to bridge the chasm between nurses and nursing assistants by fostering communication and teamwork. The study will measure the impact of the "comparisons" and "enhanced" interventions on job satisfaction, job and organizational commitment, turnover rates, perceived quality of care, and nursing assistants’ performance. The project will also examine ways to expand the program to home and community-based settings.

By enhancing the working situation of nursing assistants, we are making an effort to improve the quality of care for the residents and clients.

 

 

What's New

Check out the WIN A STEP UP discussion topic on the PHI Quality Care Through Quality Jobs Blog

Blog: Join Our Discussion