The Experiences of Workers Hired Under Consumer Direction in ...

Both agency workers and directly hired workers reported positively about their relationshipswith the consumer. Over 90 percent of both agency workers and directly hired workers reportedthat they got along very well with the consumer. Also, 85 percent of directly hired workers, and55 percent of agency workers, reported having a very close relationship with the consumer.Although most workers in both groups also reported little or no emotional strain, a largershare of directly hired workers reported suffering a great deal of emotional strain (15 percent and9 percent, respectively). Directly hired workers also fared somewhat worse than agency workersin terms of the respect they reported receiving from the consumer and the consumer’s family.(With directly hired workers, the consumer’s family is typically the worker’s own family). Inparticular, 37 percent of directly hired workers, compared with 22 percent of agency workers,reported that the consumer’s family needed to be more respectful. Part of the reason that directlyhired workers felt more emotional strain and were more likely to feel the consumer’s familyshould be more respectful could be that most directly hired workers were related to theconsumer. Family dynamics and relationships are likely to color the experiences of directlyhired workers in many ways. Next, we explore the effect of the worker-consumer relationshipon workers’ experiences in more detail.8. Key Outcomes, by Consumer-Worker RelationshipIn this section, we examine whether the experiences of directly hired workers varied bywhether they were related to the consumer and whether their experiences differed by whetherthey lived with their consumer. Our primary goal in this section is to compare key outcomesacross different types of directly hired workers. However, we also show these outcomes foragency workers, in order to provide a benchmark for directly hired workers, very few of whomare related to the consumer they care for.28