of Social and Health Services.
Long-Term Care Workers and Individual Providers.
A long-term care worker is any person who provides paid, hands-on personal care services for older persons or persons with disabilities.? The term includes individual providers of home care services, direct care workers employed by home care agencies or consumer directed employers, providers of home care services to people with developmental disabilities, direct care workers in state-licensed assisted living facilities, enhanced services facilities, and adult family homes, and respite care providers.? The term excludes employees of several types of health care and residential care facilities, as well as care providers not paid by the state or by a private agency or facility licensed to provide personal care services.
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Certification and Training Requirements.
Long-term care workers must become certified as home care aides by the Department of Health unless an exemption applies.? To become certified, a long-term care worker must complete 75 hours of training, pass a certification examination, and pass state and federal background checks.? Among the persons exempt from home care aide certification requirements are long-term care workers who are individual providers either caring for their child or parent, or caring only for a sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, grandparent, or grandchild, including when such relationships exists by marriage or domestic partnership.
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Family members who are exempt from certification have reduced training requirements.? Parents who are individual providers only for their developmentally disabled child must complete 12 hours of training relevant to the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities.? Spouses or registered domestic partners who are long-term care workers for only their spouse or domestic partner must complete 21 hours of training.? Individual providers who are paid to care for their nondevelopmentally disabled child or for a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, grandparent, or grandchild, as well as long-term care workers providing approved services only for a spouse or registered domestic partner and funded through the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, must complete 35 hours of required training and are exempt from continuing education requirements.
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WA Cares.
In 2019 the Legislature enacted the Long-Term Services and Supports Trust Program (Trust Program), or WA Cares, which provides long-term care benefits to persons who have paid into the Trust Program for a specific period of time and who have been assessed as needing a certain amount of assistance with activities of daily living.? Eligible beneficiaries may begin receiving benefits on July 1, 2026, and individual providers will be able to receive payment for providing in-home care through the Trust Program.
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Training requirements and certification exemptions for long-term care workers providing in-home care for family members are aligned, whether such care is provided by an individual provider through the Consumer Direct Care Network, through a home care agency and paid for by WA Cares, or through the WA Cares third option, to be defined in rule by the Department of Social and Health Services.