Online Workshop Series
The Strategies Center has launched a new, hands-on training series designed for states seeking to make quick progress on a specific direct care workforce goal. These short-term 90-minute workshop series provide participants with key insights and actionable steps to strengthen their direct care workforce.
Aligning State Systems to Strengthen the Direct Care Workforce: Cross System Strategies to Expand HCBS Capacity (July–September 2026)
This three-part workshop will focus on aligning Medicaid, workforce, education, aging, and disability systems to strengthen the direct care workforce.
Sessions will be facilitated by Barbara Kleist, director of business development at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration; Amy Robins, senior director of policy at Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute; Anna Heard, senior policy analyst at the National Governors Association; and Ben Mays, policy director at the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.
- July 23, 2026, 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET | Getting Started: Building Cross-Agency Commitment
- August 18, 2026, 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET | Strengthening Partnerships Across Systems
- September 24, 2026, 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET | Building Career Pathways and Apprenticeships
Using Data to Strengthen the Direct Care Workforce and Promote Alignment Across Systems (January–February 2026)
This three-part workshop focused on collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data across systems to inform workforce development and systems change. Sessions were facilitated by Kezia Scales, vice president of research and evaluation at PHI, and Julie Berdashsky, director of community living and employment at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration.
- Part 1: Identifying and Prioritizing Workforce Questions and Data Sources
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
This session explored the foundational steps states can take to build a stronger direct care workforce data strategy. Participants learned how to identify and engage key partners, define the workforce, prioritize the most critical workforce questions, and assess available data sources to support planning and decision-making. Through practical examples and a featured state panel from New Mexico, speakers shared lessons on conducting workforce data inventories, overcoming data challenges, and fostering cross-agency collaboration to better understand workforce needs and inform policy, program, and investment decisions. - Part 2: Identifying and Aligning Data Sources and Understanding Gaps
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
This session demonstrated how states can move beyond simply collecting workforce data to strategically aligning existing data sources with their most important direct care workforce questions. Participants learned practical approaches for cataloging and evaluating data sources, assessing data quality and coverage, identifying critical gaps, and prioritizing improvements that support more informed policy, planning, and workforce development decisions. - Part 3: Evaluating the Impact of Direct Care Workforce Investments
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
This webinar demonstrated how states can use data to assess whether direct care workforce investments are achieving their intended outcomes and to build a stronger evidence base for future decision-making. Participants learned practical approaches for developing an evaluation mindset, selecting meaningful workforce measures, defining success, and using data to track the impact of policies, programs, and funding initiatives over time. The session highlighted how evaluation can help states connect workforce strategies to measurable outcomes and support continuous improvement.
Webinar Series
The Strategies Center hosts free, public webinar series that highlights innovative strategies, practical tools, and emerging best practices to strengthen the direct care workforce. Each session features experts and state leaders sharing data-informed, real-time innovations that other communities can learn from and adapt. The Strategies Center may co-host or participate in others' events, which are also included in this section.
AI and the Direct Care Workforce: Perspectives on Adoption, Ethics, and What Comes Next (July 2026)
This panel brought together provider, research, and federal voices to examine AI adoption through a worker-centered lens — giving attendees a clearer picture of where the field is, what the risks are, and what responsible AI integration in home and community-based services requires. Slides and recording coming soon.
State-Level Cross Agency Collaborations: Stories and Strategies from the Field Designed to Address the DSP Crisis (May 2026)
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
Hosted by the LEAD Center, this webinar highlighted state-led cross-agency collaborations, technical assistance, and peer learning strategies to address direct support professional workforce shortages, with examples from North Carolina's recruitment, retention, and career pathway initiatives. Panelists include the DCW Strategies Center.
From Numbers to Action: Using Data to Strengthen the HCBS Direct Care Workforce (November 2025)
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
This webinar demonstrated how states can leverage what they have today, pinpoint what they need next, and connect datasets across systems to forecast demand and guide smarter investments and policy change. Panelists provided practical frameworks, state-tested examples, and tools to translate data into action — to set targets, evaluate impact, and build a durable measurement strategy for the direct care workforce.
Innovation in the Direct Care Workforce: Unlocking Success Through Peer Learning (January 2025)
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
The webinar explored how 14 state teams collaborated through the Peer Learning Collaboratives to share best practices, address challenges, and make measurable progress in strengthening the home and community-based services (HCBS) direct care workforce. States shared how the benefits of peer-to-peer learning with a small group of states focused on similar priorities, and accessing national subject matter experts, helped them achieve measurable progress toward strengthening this essential workforce.
Using Marketing Campaigns to Expand & Advance the Direct Care Workforce: The WisCaregiver Careers Experience (July 2024)
Webinar recording with ASL
This webinar highlighted Wisconsin's WisCaregiver Careers program, a successful initiative that uses targeted marketing to recruit, train, and retain direct care workers. This engaging session provided insight into how marketing campaigns can effectively support the growth and retention of the direct care workforce and covered integrating campaigns with broader workforce initiatives, such as education and certification.
Workforce Investment Systems 101: Engaging with State Workforce Systems — Learning the Language to Build Partnerships (June 2024)
Webinar recording with ASL
State direct care workforce systems change initiatives benefit from a strong partnership between the state’s workforce development system and the state’s Medicaid and home and community-based service agencies. This webinar provided an overview of common workforce terminology, the role of a state workforce board, federal and state workforce funding vehicles, and insight into state workforce investment systems' determination of high-growth industries to prioritize in sector-based career pathway development.
Call-to-Action for Building the Home and Community-Based Services Workforce Data Infrastructure (May 2024)
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reviewed available data on the HCBS workforce and identified opportunities to augment and improve existing resources. Accurate, timely data is critical to answering key questions about the workforce and driving data-informed policy decisions to improve the quality of and access to HCBS for millions of Americans. Additional data is needed to better understand the workforce and emerging trends, and to quantify linkages between workforce investments and quality outcomes, both for workers and individuals receiving services. Filling these gaps requires engagement from many entities, including the federal government, states, the research community, nonprofits, and private-sector businesses, who all have an important role to play in building this data infrastructure. In this webinar, HHS and DOL presented their recommendations to improve data about the HCBS workforce, and a non-federal panel of leaders and innovators in the field discussed these recommendations and shared innovations.
Addressing the Shortage: The Current State of the Direct Care Workforce (April 2024)
Webinar recording with ASL | Webinar slides
The DCW Strategies Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center hosted this webinar on the critical issue of the workforce shortage, current policy initiatives, and solutions to address it. This event offered an understanding of the critical role that the workforce plays in community living and the challenges that the shortage has created. A panel of experts discussed cultivating supportive environments, expanding the direct care workforce, and improving data collection. The panel also covered strategies and initiatives the federal government and state governments have developed to address the shortage.
Federal Action to Address the Direct Care Workforce Crisis (March 2024)
Webinar recording with speakers and ASL | Recording with speakers and slides | Webinar slides
Low wages, lack of benefits, limited opportunities for career growth, and other factors have resulted in a long-standing shortage of critical professionals who provide care. That shortage has become a dire crisis. Today, more than three-quarters of service providers are declining new participants, and more than half are cutting services. As a result, people who need assistance often have no option except to move to a nursing home or other institution; people who want to leave these facilities cannot; and the health and safety of those who live in the community are put at risk. This webinar featured speakers across the federal government leadership discussing current federal initiatives to address the direct care workforce crisis.