Consumer Directed Care

Managing home care services involves many responsibilities. These include, but are not limited to: recruiting, screening, interviewing, hiring, scheduling, training, supervising, paying, withholding taxes, providing performance feedback to workers and, if necessary, firing workers. Other tasks that may be associated with service management include conflict resolution and self-advocacy. Many consumer-directed care programs allow consumers to select surrogates or authorized representatives such as family members or friends to handle these responsibilities on their behalf, and some programs provide support and assistance with these tasks for consumers (Flanagan and Green).