Welcome to the Partnership

WHO WE ARE

We are a broad partnership led by the Maine Council on Aging, the Maine Center for Economic Policy and PHI, working to increase access to quality direct care and support in Maine by changing the way we value workers and the work they do. We are working to create a resilient and empowered direct care and support workforce equipped to provide care and support services to older adults, those with behavioral health needs, and people with physical and/or intellectual disabilities wherever services are needed. Our work is partially funded by a generous grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

Every person who needs care and support services in Maine should be able to receive consistent and predictable care and support from an empowered and valued worker who is trained to deliver quality services, regardless of the setting in which services are delivered. A well-trained and appropriately compensated direct care and support workforce is essential to the health and well-being of Maine’s people and economy.

WHAT WE DO

We engage in advocacy, research and coalition building to increase the number and kinds of people who are advocating for sufficient investments in Maine’s “care economy” – both the workforce and the care infrastructure, collaborating on innovative solutions and initiatives to grow and more efficiently deploy a quality workforce, and promoting care as a valuable and honorable profession.

The Future of Maine’s Care Workforce Planning Summit

A Brighter Future for Everyone

Read the Culminating Report from this Past Event

Maine’s Essential Care & Support Workforce Partnership gathered for the Future of Maine’s Care Workforce Planning Summit to generate the action steps needed to grow this workforce to meet Maine’s current and future demands.

Maine’s lack of care and support professionals is impacting us all – employees are leaving the workforce unnecessarily to provide care and support to loved ones, hospital beds are being filled unnecessarily by people who cannot get care at home or in a residential setting, and the problem is costing us over a billion dollars in lost economic activity and productivity.

The June 18th Summit highlighted the breadth of the continuing crisis and generated a myriad of suggested action steps needed to grow this workforce to meet Maine’s current and future demands.

All the good ideas were pulled into and summarized in the summit’s report, “The Future of Maine’s Care Workforce Planning Summit Culminating Report.”

We invite you to help us operationalize that plan over the next year by joining one of our three Working Groups. This Summit was about building a brighter future for everyone in Maine. We hope you will join us by emailing us with your interest.

Sign Up to Join the Partnership Today!

Maine’s Essential Care and Support Workforce Partnership represents a broad and robust coalition of advocates working to increase access to quality direct care workers for older people, people with intellectual and/or physical disabilities, and those with behavioral health challenges.

Click Here to Join!

The Partnership Launches Its Second Report!

Authored by the Maine Center for Economic Policy, the report, titled, Closing the Gap: Maine’s Direct Care Shortage and Solutions to Fix It, builds on MECEP’s previous work to support efforts by academics, advocates, consumers, state health officials, policymakers, and providers to address issues that impact our direct care system. By quantifying the current care gap, what it will take to address it, and the costs of inaction, we hope to bring these issues into greater focus and identify solutions.

Click Here to Read!