I’ve been running a survey for a few months now across people with disability and their families that use support workers to help their family member to have the good life they want.   I’ve been trying to understand how the employment relationship affects outcomes for the people they support.

The results so far are interesting

While the sample size is still relatively small the trends so far have been interesting….

People who directly employ staff feel there is better team work between staff

People who directly employ staff feel they are more consistently available to work regular shifts.  Their experience is that agency staff vary a lot in their availability.

Survey participants felt that staff who are directly employed seem to stay longer in their roles

Survey participants felt that relationships between support workers seem to be better when they are directly employed

Staff who are directly employed were viewed as being more reliable

Staff that are directly employed or who are contractors were assessed as being more skilled