IDHS-DEC Workforce Survey Recap results from the 2024 IDHS-DEC Home Visiting Survey, Funding Sources MIECHV and IDHS-DEC State. The survey is intended for home visitors, supervisors, coordinated intake, doulas, and other staff members involved in home visiting services. The purposes of the IDHS-DEC Home Visiting Staff Survey are to obtain feedback, understand needs, and recommend strategies to address needs and challenges. This video is covering topics from Workforce Part 1: Demographic Salaries & Turnover, and Workforce Part 2: Stress, Burnout, & Supports. The survey was available from August 2, 2024 to August 21, 2024 with a 74% response rate, (208 of 282 staff members). Here's what we found... Survey Respondent Facts: Almost two -thirds of respondents identified as age 35 or older. 25% self-identified as Black/African-American, and 24% of survey respondents were Hispanic/Latino. Eighty-four percent of participants saw a need for home visitors and doulas to speak a language other than English. Recommended languages: Spanish was the most recommended language need. Twenty-two percent of respondents indicated they speak Spanish with proficiency. Home visitor salary: The information below reflects data from the FY25 IDHS-DEC Home Visiting Compensation Report conducted by Start Early. One hundred percent of MIECHV and state -funded home visitors received a minimum salary within the outlined time frame. 88% of home visitor supervisor salaries met the recommended salary floor.  Departures & Average Length of Vacancy SFY24: The average length of vacancies for home visitors was 3.1 months. It takes about 6 to 8 months for home visitors to get trained and build a caseload. 18% of home visitors and home visitor supervisors are actively seeking the employment. Work stress: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not at all stressed and 10 being extremely stressed, 37% of all respondents self-rated 7 or higher on the stress scale. According to participants, the most stressful challenges were workload, work demands, and caseload requirements, paperwork documentation, and overlapping administrative responsibilities, secondary stress from working with families in crisis, turnover and staffing shortage, changes in policy and leadership, lack of support from supervisors or supervising staff who are behind on their tasks. According to participants the most helpful strategies to manage work stress were: Supervisor relationships and reflective supervision, co-worker support, self-care practices, vacation and mental health days, organization, time delegation, and time management and mental health,  support through Infant Mental Health Consultants. "What was most helpful in managing my stress was having reflective supervision with my supervisor." - Home visitor The top five reasons for staying were making a difference in others lives, variety and flexibility of work, personal commitment to home visiting, colleagues in my agency, and support for my supervisor. The top five reasons for leaving were salary, burnout, assessment/data collection requirements, lack of support from my agency leadership, and caseload requirements. Supports for home visiting workforce: Professional Development System: Start Early Professional Learning Network, Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants Maternal Child Health Nurse consultant, Start Early communities of practice and reflective supervision. Supports for the home visiting workforce included IDHS-DEC state level supports: Aligned program requirements and data for both MIECHV and state funded grantees, salary floor for home visitors, program monitoring/support staff and regular "office hours" meeting with home visiting programs. Support for the home visiting workforce included Data and quality supports: home visiting collaboration improvement, innovation network (HVCOINN) and Technical Assistant Resource Center (TARC) Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) practicum, CPRD TA and support for CQI, coordinated intake (CI) and data. "I feel that MIECHV and IDHS understand our work and support our site in many ways from providing adequate funding opportunities to relevant training in CQI. Thank you for your support!" - Other staff position. Visit the CPRD website to see the 2024 IDHS-DEC Annual Survey Briefs:  Workforce Part 1, Demographics, Salary, and Turnover, Workforce Part 2: Stress, Burnout, and Supports, Professional Development, Parent Engagement & Caseload Capacity and Disparities.