Direct care workers – nursing assistants, home health assistants, and personal care aides – serve as the backbone of dementia care across various settings, yet their training often lacks standardization and sufficient preparation for the complexities of their role. State training requirements for direct care workers vary widely, encompassing differing mandates for general and dementia-specific training, minimum training hours, and prescribed content. This study will leverage two robust datasets from the NIA-funded Advancing Workforce Analysis and Research for Dementia (AWARD) Network and the National Dementia Workforce Study (NDWS) to explore how state-specific training policies influence the training received by nursing home and assisted living staff, their confidence in dementia care skills, and their overall job satisfaction.

This project aims to: 

• Analyze state-specific training requirements for direct care workers, including general and dementia-specific training mandates, minimum training hours, and content specifications for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. 
• Examine whether nursing home and assisted living workers in states with dementia care training policies report greater confidence in their skills and preparedness to provide high-quality dementia care. 
• Explore associations between training policies, training received, and worker outcomes, such as job satisfaction, intention to leave their job, and perceptions of professional respect.

For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected].