Western Standard - The role of the Alberta Disability Workers association

00:00:00.080 Maybe just to begin with, like your association, I saw your release and we'll go into more of the

00:00:04.160 issues, but kind of describing what your association is about. It's not a union,

00:00:08.560 but it's still an association of people representing a sector and the workers within

00:00:12.400 the disability services aren't government employees. Is that correct?

00:00:17.520 That's correct. Yeah. So the workforce that provides services to Albertans with disabilities

00:00:23.680 is a community service. So they're not employed by the government. The services are provided by

00:00:29.120 non-profit and service organizations as the workers' employers.

00:00:35.680 Okay. So a disability worker, what would be examples of somebody who does that? Like a caretaker,

00:00:42.880 I guess you could say, for an individual or assisted living?

00:00:47.200 Yeah. That's a great question because oftentimes what happens is that there's a misunderstanding of

00:00:54.800 who it is that does the work. And we oftentimes are confused with those that work in long-term care

00:01:01.600 centers, extended care centers, or provide personal care attendance. What our workforce is, is providing

00:01:08.480 services out to Albertans with developmental disabilities and individuals live in Alberta

00:01:14.880 communities where they are living in their own home. They may be sharing a home with other roommates.

00:01:21.600 They're living and working across Alberta and the workers are there providing services to help them

00:01:28.240 live the life that they want to live and help them live the life as an Albertan and a citizen.

00:01:34.720 Great. So maybe onto your initiative then. The problem is, well, that the pay, unfortunately,

00:01:41.200 to be blunt from what I've seen, kind of stinks for such an important and challenging job. And it hasn't had a

00:01:46.480 raise in quite some time now. What's going on? I mean, I guess that's a challenge though, when it's

00:01:52.480 not, I guess, one solid unit, it's not government employees, it's not a union. So how do you address

00:01:58.080 having the wages? I mean, they should rise, they have to, the cost of everything is going up and this

00:02:01.920 is a tough, important job. So how do we get that raised up? Like, who are you petitioning to exactly,

00:02:07.440 I guess we could say?

00:02:08.080 So we're calling on the Alberta government because organizations and families who employ staff to

00:02:16.000 provide the services, they receive funding from the government in order to hire staff. We have not

00:02:22.080 had a funding increase for wages and compensation since 2014. So an already underpaid workforce,

00:02:30.560 undervalued workforce has fallen drastically behind what they should be being paid for this important

00:02:37.280 work. And we are having attraction and retention issues to the point where people coming up into

00:02:44.800 the system for services, organizations are not able to take new services on because we can't find staff

00:02:52.000 to do the services we're doing already. People, it's a competitive market and we need to be able to pay

00:02:57.520 people adequately. Well, that's it. And then the cost of living is rising. So, but I mean, so this works

00:03:03.440 through, it's kind of indirectly government funded though. So it'll come from the government to a

00:03:08.400 number of different organizations. And then how does that work towards, I guess somebody is hired in

00:03:14.640 a circumstance, it could be at a group home, or it could be a family member hiring an individual, or

00:03:22.160 it's, how does they, I guess the hiring spectrum work with that?

00:03:26.000 So, yeah, so the workforce is very diverse in the skill sets and the types of work they're doing. So

00:03:35.600 you can have employment specialists, you can have community support workers, you have people in, in

00:03:41.280 their homes providing all the care that somebody and support that somebody would need inside their

00:03:45.920 home. And so in our workforce, we have about 15,000 workers across the province who are hired by a

00:03:51.600 variety of organizations and families to provide the support and each organization or family has its

00:03:57.120 own government funding to do that. So when there's no funding increase, you either have to cut back

00:04:04.400 services to give increased compensation, or you cannot increase compensation. So our last resort is

00:04:11.360 always to cut back service. This is absolutely required service in our communities for these people.

00:04:17.200 And so we are calling on the Alberta government that these funding contracts have to be

00:04:21.200 increased to directly relate to compensation for staff to do this important work.

00:04:26.720 Right. And so when you think about the cost of living over the last eight years, so it's not even

00:04:31.120 just what is currently happening now, it's there's not been an increase in that funding. So with the cost

00:04:37.520 of living increases, service providers have other expenses, right? Insurance, maintenance, facilities,

00:04:45.040 food, all those kinds of things are increasing, but their contract funding is not increasing.

00:04:50.960 And so in order to just stay open, they have to start, you know, moving those funds from what would

00:04:57.200 be called direct service money, just to, you know, pay insurance, pay rent, those kinds of things.

00:05:03.760 Okay, so this, which government ministry, I guess, would be responsible for this,

00:05:09.200 would this be social services or health or where does it, you say it's an annual budgetary sort of item,

00:05:15.120 right? Right. So it's in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. And these services are called

00:05:21.680 Persons with Developmental Disabilities or Family Supports for Children with Disabilities. Those are

00:05:27.120 the areas where the funding is going. Okay, and then with disabilities, of course, that's a broad term

00:05:32.640 and a number of people suffer from a great many of them. But predominantly, what you're speaking of

00:05:36.320 are individuals with developmental disabilities, I'm guessing. Right. Yeah. So onset of that disability was

00:05:42.640 before they were 18. And it's a very significant disability to the point where somebody needs

00:05:46.800 support in their life in order to do the things, you know, they wish to do.

00:05:51.680 Yeah. And that support looks very different for each individual person, right? So it could be

00:05:57.920 24 hours a day, seven days a week type of support to a visit once a week to see how things are going.

00:06:04.480 So with these workers also, I mean, as you said, there are different circumstances.

00:06:12.160 Does this also apply to say larger facilities like a mission or center? I know they've been winding

00:06:16.080 down. I don't even know if they still house people any longer, but are facilities like that as well under

00:06:22.560 this umbrella? Well, that, interestingly enough, there's a couple of direct services. And so that those

00:06:30.720 are funds, those are direct employees of the government. So people who work at Michener Center,

00:06:36.480 people who work at residential support services, those are government direct services. And so they

00:06:42.560 are unionized employees. So when we go back to 2014, when there was the last increase, that increase was

00:06:50.960 really advocacy just to bring the community service workers to the level of the people who work for

00:06:58.480 government that provide to do that, who do the same work. So they were just trying to bring us to

00:07:03.600 level. And we didn't even actually get to that point. And they still owed us percentages, but that

00:07:09.040 was the commitment. So since then, we've fallen even more behind that comparison type of work that is

00:07:17.440 truly a government employee. Right? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify everything, you know, as we move our

00:07:22.320 way down, like you said, we're something of a conservative media outlet and a show. But you know,

00:07:27.760 the reality with conservatives, we believe that people who can't care for themselves without some

00:07:32.720 help, that's our social obligation to help take care of each other. That's what we do. I mean,

00:07:37.760 this is an area I think few people question, you know, spending some tax dollars and ensuring we're

00:07:42.320 taking care of our neighbors and our friends. And it's just one of those areas of the worst areas to

00:07:47.360 be cutting back in my view. So I just wanted to clarify what that's all about.

00:07:51.360 Yeah, and you know, that's one of the things that as an association that we really emphasize,

00:07:57.520 and we it's about it's putting the humanness in it. So, you know, regardless of the governments of

00:08:03.200 the day, or regardless of political views, we're talking about people and Albertans and citizens who

00:08:11.040 require support to live the lives that they want to live. And that support needs to be provided by

00:08:17.200 an individual who has certain skill sets, because one of the main focuses is to individualize that

00:08:23.120 support. And that requires a lot of skill sets. And you know, with the erosion of the workforce over,

00:08:30.320 you know, the last couple of decades, and the cuts that were happening into human services,

00:08:36.160 it's gotten to the point that people are not choosing this as a career, because the wages are so

00:08:41.840 low, we lost post secondary educational programs, because people were not going to school in order

00:08:48.240 to become a community services disability worker, because the wages were were not there once they

00:08:54.560 graduated. So it's a long term kind of thing we cycle in and out of crisis. But where we're at now is

00:09:02.640 critical. And we need some short term immediate responses from the government in order to just keep

00:09:10.160 people who are working now to stay working. And that that's really the crisis that we're in.

00:09:17.600 Yeah. So with that, it would be difficult to make it happen fast. But you mean, you still have

00:09:22.240 to start somewhere because so what would happen is they would release the funds that would go, you

00:09:26.800 know, presumably, if they wanted to increase it, it would go to a number of organizations, and that

00:09:30.880 could funnel down through wage increases. What assurances would the government have, though, that the

00:09:34.880 organizations would, you know, move it down into wage increases? Like, is it would it be targeted spending?

00:09:40.320 Yeah, and there's history of government doing this in the past, there's mechanisms where that funding

00:09:45.840 can be provided and released and accounted for. Organizations and family or families who hire privately

00:09:52.080 are highly accountable for the funding that they get. And so there are ways to do that. We've done it in the

00:09:57.760 past with previous governments back before 2014. And so we're confident that the money would go

00:10:04.080 directly to where the problem lies and to the immediate need that we all have.

00:10:09.280 Great. I mean, our government is I mean, you know, I as I said, I'm conservative, I don't like seeing

00:10:13.840 them spend blindly. But this is an area I feel especially if they've been sitting on it for this

00:10:17.280 many years. Hey, the budget's looking pretty good. We've got some good energy resources coming in,

00:10:22.240 we've got a need, this would be a good time to top up on something like this, where we're helping our

00:10:26.560 citizens and our and our people on the ground. I mean, you know, God knows we waste money on

00:10:30.960 enough other things. This is an important one they could certainly dedicate towards.

00:10:35.120 Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing too, like so we have two asks to our campaign,

00:10:39.360 we have that immediate intervention to help us kind of get through this crisis. And then we have a

00:10:45.040 long term ask about the idea of having sustainable and predictable funding increases that go along with

00:10:51.280 the cost of living so that we don't see ourselves repeated crisis over and over and over again.

00:10:56.400 So we don't want to see this kind of one time influx of here's a bonus, right? We want to see an

00:11:02.880 increase. And then we want to see a plan that allows people to have sustainable, predictable

00:11:08.880 funding increases that allows them to increase the wages as we go forward.

00:11:14.080 So going further to that, I mean, aside from, you know, just funding, which is, of course, it's

00:11:19.200 essential to everything. Are there just other systemic changes or ways that are things are being done that

00:11:24.480 could be changed as well to improve the process? It sounds like it's a bit of a convoluted path

00:11:29.360 from, you know, from taxpayer to a person who's receiving the services.

00:11:33.040 Absolutely. We always talk about there's a whole bunch of balls that have to be

00:11:37.200 in the air at the same time, right? Because it is very complex. So one of the things that we recognize

00:11:43.440 in order to have a sustainable for people to choose this as a career is the idea of competency and

00:11:49.520 certification. So at ADWA, we've also been working on a certification model that looks at a certain

00:11:56.240 skill set. And with that skill set comes a professional wage comes a professional expectations

00:12:02.800 and professional responsibilities. And that was one of the reasons why ADWA started in 2010 was to be a

00:12:10.640 voice for that workforce and to try to see what has been eroded since the 80s to come back to where it

00:12:18.560 needed to be. And so we want to see a level of skilled workers who choose this as a career and are

00:12:27.760 committed and stay in it. And that the post-secondary institutions are able to have those programs

00:12:35.680 available to them to provide the skill set and the workforce that's needed for Albertans.

00:12:42.960 Well, I would imagine reducing turnover is very important in this too. Like workers have developed

00:12:47.200 relationships quite often with the people they're caring for, working with, and it's not good for

00:12:52.320 people with developmental disabilities to have a number of changes and changing faces and things

00:12:57.120 like that with their individual needs. So again, I mean, if there's better compensation, you're going

00:13:01.760 to reduce the chances of people constantly changing jobs. Right, absolutely. And relationships are key,

00:13:07.760 right? Relationships are one of the reasons why people who are currently working in the sector don't want to

00:13:15.120 leave, right? So they are struggling. The stories that we hear on a daily basis are the struggle and

00:13:21.520 the dilemma that they're facing, that they're passionate about what they do, they're committed to what

00:13:26.960 they're doing, they're committed to the people that they work with, and yet they find they can't afford to

00:13:32.240 stay. And if they can't afford to stay, they're making a choice now to leave. And that's the crisis. And then when they

00:13:41.120 leave, we don't have somebody else with that skill set to come in. There isn't that recruitment to

00:13:48.800 replace the person who chooses to leave. So that's that emptiness. And that puts people with disabilities

00:13:56.480 with fewer staff that are available to provide the services, as well as the unpredictability of who's

00:14:03.600 going to be working, who's going to be with me tonight in the evening, who's going to be with me tomorrow

00:14:09.440 morning, right? So that inconsistency of the staffing for individuals is really, it just it really isn't

00:14:18.560 fair to them. Yeah, and it's a competitive work market. I mean, if a person has to choose between

00:14:24.800 paying the rent and keeping the job they like, well, they still might have to just take that other job

00:14:29.920 that pays better and move on. And again, it's putting a very vulnerable sector, even more vulnerable.

00:14:36.080 So that's why I wanted to have you guys on to speak to it, because it's kind of sliding under

00:14:39.120 the radar. You don't have, you're not a union. So you don't have that strength in quite the making

00:14:45.600 noise or lobbying government so directly. And, you know, we just don't want people to forget about

00:14:50.720 that. So with your initiatives out there, you've got a petition and some other things. How can people

00:14:54.960 support your efforts? Our website is atma.ca. And we have, yeah, there it is in the button,

00:15:03.760 the essential but forgotten. So one of the things like you said, because we're not a union,

00:15:08.080 and we're a professional association, our role is really about advocating for the workforce,

00:15:13.920 for people who do this work across Alberta, Alberta. But we also feel very strongly about empowering our

00:15:21.280 membership and the people who do this work to advocate for themselves. And so what you what

00:15:26.800 we're seeing is support from families, we have support from self advocates, we have support from

00:15:33.360 members all across Alberta, who are doing writing letters, having meetings with their MLAs, who are

00:15:39.760 doing everything that they can, in order to get this message heard. And, you know, being on a show

00:15:46.480 like this, we appreciate it, because you're right, having the, the misunderstanding of who it is, and

00:15:52.320 what this workforce is, is something that we, that is a challenge for us. And, but I mean, a lot of people

00:16:00.640 are talking about it. And that's a great thing. Great. Well, Paige and Sean, I appreciate you coming on

00:16:07.360 to talk to us today about it and the work you do. Is there anything else you'd like to add before I let

00:16:11.600 you go? No, I just I just think go to our website and we provide it different examples. We give sample

00:16:20.640 letters of how you can connect with your MLA. And we're going to continue doing that and posting.

00:16:26.080 We have a lot of stories and just kind of remembering who it is that we're talking about. We're talking about

00:16:32.800 people, Albertans with disabilities who require support. And we're talking about the people who

00:16:38.160 are employed by community based organizations that are providing that service. So it's really about

00:16:44.400 people and, and not about the money and the statistics. Great. Well, thank you again. And I

00:16:52.480 hope somebody starts paying attention out there and we can resolve this before there's any more damage

00:16:57.600 done. So again, thank you for coming on today, guys. And perhaps we'll talk again in the future

00:17:01.920 on a more positive note. Great. Thanks very much. Thank you very much.

Western Standard - May 24, 2022

The role of the Alberta Disability Workers association

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