Petition: Employing Parent Caregivers Bill
Washington State Legislature
The Employing Parent Caregivers Bill
Bill to allow employment eligibility for parents caring for disabled children in Washington Sponsored by Rep. Jamila Taylor
● 4,700 children in WA meet federal criteria for institutional-level care and have already been allocated Medicaid in-home personal care hours to live safely in their communities.
● In WA, parents of minors are prohibited from working as caregivers during these hours, but parents of adult children are not. We need employment parity!
● Families are unable to find qualified caregivers to hire due to a well-documented shortage of caregivers. Typical childcare settings are often inaccessible to children with disabilities.
● Parents caring for their children are often forced to leave the workforce to provide this extraordinary care without compensation, leaving the entire family struggling financially.
● According to the DDA, ⅓ of all childcare funds allocated to children go unspent each year, totaling 1.4 million assessed but uncompensated care hours worked by parents.
● This policy restriction disproportionately affects women, single parents, people of color, low-income households, and families with language access barriers.
● Employing Parents of Children with Disabilities will direct $50 million (half of it in federal funds) in wages and benefits directly into the pockets of families caring for children with disabilities.
● Parents of adult children with disabilities can now work as carers in WA. Consumer Direct of WA currently employs around 15,000 parents.
● Parent caregivers of children with developmental disabilities are struggling to gain eligibility to work as paid caregivers. In 2020, 38 states provided this support during the public health emergency, and due to its success, 27 states have made it a permanent program.
The Parent Caregiver Employment Bill simply expands the caregiver workforce to allow natural, adoptive, and stepparents of minor children to be eligible to work during the home care hours already allocated to their children.
We, parents, caregivers of children with disabilities and support organizations, ask you to support this bill in the upcoming legislative session by signing the petition.
Sponsored by
To:
Washington State Legislature
From:
[Your Name]
This year, the Washington State Legislature can make a huge impact on the lives of children and families with developmental disabilities by making natural, adoptive, and stepparents of children under the age of 18 eligible to be employed as paid caregivers.
Please sign on as a supporter of the bill allowing the employment of parent caregivers this session. Passage of this important policy change would improve the lives of 4,700 Washington families caring for a child with a disability.