PSW Perspectives on the Staffing Challenge in Long-Term Care
The long-term care (LTC) sector in Ontario is experiencing severe staffing challenges. As a result, Personal Support Workers (PSWs) face a number of challenges every day in their role caring for and supporting older adults. During this project, PSWs shared that PSWs often feel unacknowledged, undervalued, and overlooked as care providers in the LTC sector. As frontline care providers, they noted that they experience negative interactions, racism,
discrimination, violence, and stigma within their places of work and in the community at large.
Though PSWs face different barriers and challenges, the majority of PSWs take great pride in their work and want to provide the best possible care for residents.
While the staffing challenges in LTC are well-known in the sector, PSWs have had limited opportunity to share their perspectives and present possible solutions for the problems they experience in their work. To effectively address these challenges and seek solutions, the Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care (CLRI) at the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging, in partnership with Overlap Associates, engaged in a project with PSWs across Ontario to better understand their experiences amidst the staffing shortage.
Workshop Summaries
