Add-on Funding for Evaluating the Impact of Training for In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Workers

This proposal requests additional funding to support participant recruitment for an ongoing randomized evaluation. We are collaborating with the Center for Caregiver Advancement (CCA) to evaluate the impact of training for home care providers in the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program (a consumer-directed home care program for elderly people with low-income and clients with disability clients in California) on health and health care outcomes for care consumers and employment outcomes for home care providers. The goal of the research is to understand whether high-quality training for home care workers can simultaneously improve the quality of care and strengthen jobs. We measure the impacts of training on both IHSS consumers and providers using administrative data from California agencies and an endline survey, for which we previously received J-PAL North America funding. The project is currently in the implementation phase and has enrolled two out of a planned four cohorts of participants, for a sample size to date of 570 IHSS providers. Additional funding is necessary for CCA to sustain and hopefully increase recruitment efforts for the study, with a final target enrollment of 1470 providers. This change would improve power on key outcomes, increasing the likelihood that the study would generate informative, policy-relevant results.