What do direct care staff need to know to support older people’s health and well-being?
- “Some things that we assume are ‘age-related’ normal changes are not.”
- “Think about the individual as I make choices for care.”
- “A lot about mobility and the need to walk.”
- “Slow down, let them do more. Pay attention to changes.”
- “A full range of ways to enhance life for people with challenges.”
The quotes above are what direct care staff participants say was the most useful thing they learned during recent CARE U workshops.
Since 2014, the Center for Aging Research and Education (CARE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing has organized free workshops for direct care staff. These caregivers, including certified nursing assistants (CNAs), personal care workers, and adult day care staff, provide most of the hands-on care to older people across settings.
What direct care staff know about age-related conditions impacts the quality of care they can provide for older people. Barb Bowers, PhD, RN, FAAN, School of Nursing professor emerita and CARE founding director, developed CARE U to support direct care staff and help improve care.
“In any long-term care or home-care nursing setting, there’s minimal opportunity for continuing education that relates to older adults,” says Bowers. “So, we conducted these workshops all around Wisconsin on topic areas that CNAs and personal care workers would face on a daily basis. … Many participants said it was the only education they had beyond the minimal training when they were certified.”
Feedback from direct care staff has helped strengthen CARE U. Workshops now include seven topics: person-centered care, dementia care, mobility, vision, nutrition, pain, and emergency preparedness. Each topic is covered through interactive presentations and active learning exercises that reinforce best practices.
Wisconsin has one of the largest direct care staff workforces in the U.S., including over 107,500 people in 2024. More caregivers are needed as the state’s population ages, especially in rural communities.
After offering workshops for a few years, CARE realized that a small number of faculty and staff could not meet the growing interest. So, CARE developed a train-the-trainer approach to prepare nurses and other health educators to offer their own workshops. To date, more than 50 health educators across Wisconsin have become CARE U trainers.
Ginny Schimmel and Jim Adams know how rural residents can benefit from CARE U. They’re from Chetek, a small city with six lakes in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.
They lead a local volunteer network that supports rural aging-in-place. When a CARE U workshop was offered last year in nearby Rice Lake, they jumped at the chance to better understand how to help their older neighbors.
“We learned how you might begin to get to know someone because, if you understood what had been important to them in their life earlier, you may be able to help them more,” says Schimmel. “That whole attitude permeated all of the presentations.”
“The workshop covered so many different subject areas,” agrees Adams, such as supporting “people with hearing loss or with impaired sight or who are non-ambulatory.”
They requested that a new CARE U trainer lead a workshop in Chetek, so their whole network could attend. That workshop was held last summer. Adams and Schimmel have since signed up to become CARE U trainers themselves.
Feedback from recent train-the-trainer participants illustrates how CARE U exemplifies the Wisconsin Idea.
How do you plan to use the CARE U information and materials provided?
- “To provide education to our rural communities.”
- “Bring information/fun learning activities back to my facility.”
- “Teach my Native community.”
- “I’m passionate about improving care for older adults. … I look forward to using my budding skills to help present the CARE U topics at my hospital and hopefully make a difference!”
Upcoming CARE U events include a train-the-trainer and workshop in Green Bay in February 2026 and a bilingual English / Spanish workshop in Milwaukee in May 2026. More information is available on the CARE website.
–Diane Farsetta; with thanks to Sheri Hall and Christina Frank for the interview quotes