Advocating for Workforce Solutions: Engage Your Community

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Matt Steele

The Minnesota Legislature will convene for the 2022 session on Jan. 31, and a strong grassroots network is an essential part of our strategy to drive action. We've created a tool to help you engage members of your community to add voices that can help us share the importance of increasing wages for caregivers and ensuring access to care for seniors.

With access to care across the continuum being impacted by record-level workforce shortages in assisted living and nursing homes across Minnesota, now is the time to share our story and do all we can to ensure seniors have access to the care they need.

In addition to your efforts and the work of our team of policy advocates, the members of your broader community can serve as powerful champions for our mission that can amplify your organization's voice. Together, we can be powerful change agents for the seniors we serve and their caregivers.

LeadingAge Minnesota has developed a Community Advocacy Toolkit to engage members of your community, Boards of Directors, and County Commissioners. The toolkit includes pre-drafted written communication resources that are adaptable to engage important local stakeholders on our workforce solutions like fliers, letters, and a one-page infographic. We also included talking points that cover critical data highlighting the crisis facing long-term care and policy solutions that we are currently advocating for with lawmakers.

With the 2022 legislative session just around the corner, we must get all hands on deck to engage policymakers to adopt solutions to mitigate workforce shortages in long-term care. If you have any questions or need help using the toolkit, please contact Matt Steele, Director of Government Affairs.