Respite WorkforcePHI and the Respite Care Association of Wisconsin curated this collection, drawing on organizations across the respite, home care, and broader caregiving fields. Applying a scoring rubric developed with PHI's Research and Evaluation team, the project team evaluated more than 50 resources against standards for credibility, transferability to the respite community, and accessibility, then selected the 25 featured here.
Some resources are from respite agencies, others come from homecare or other healthcare systems, while others are from sectors outside of this field entirely. All offer insightful ideas, recommendations, or templates to inform or adapt to your own practices. Additional work will be required to adapt and contextualize for your own use.
Use these resources to kick start conversations within your team and reignite innovation in your recruitment and retention strategies.
From RCAW
A FREE online resource that provides comprehensive, step-by-step guidance to academic programs on how to establish partnerships with existing respite programs and develop their own respite programs.
From Respite for All Foundation
Supports individuals or organizations in building a Respite Ministry in their community. Provides starting information on financing, transportation, meals, program hours, scholarship offerings, and more.
From RCAW
A foundational training designed to help individuals explore, plan, and prepare for developing respite services in Wisconsin.
From PHI
Offers 10 practical strategies to help spark ideas for recruitment and retention interventions. All strategies are rooted in the person-centered principle that individuals matter, from screening new applicants to recognizing contributions of seasoned caregivers.
From University of Wisconsin-Madison
Offers recruitment, advertising, social media, local media relations, and other general messaging templates for recruiting caregivers. Messaging templates are easily modified for a respite worker audience.
From RCAW
Offers family caregivers clear considerations for hiring a new respite caregiver. Includes tips on defining wants and needs, job expectations, finding applicants, posting job advertisements, interviewing skills, hiring processes, and training.
From Wisconsin Department of Health Services
A curated list of digital resources on recruitment, retention, engagement, and turnover. Includes webpages, studies, books, and articles, as well as ideas from professionals in the field.
From Research and Training Center on Community Living, University of Minnesota
Provides algorithms and analysis commentary on calculating and interpreting turnover and retention, including a fillable worksheet.
From Institute on Community Integration at University of Minnesota and CMS
A series of learning modules offering content on skills and competencies, as well as recruiting, hiring, welcoming, and supporting Direct Support Professionals.
From Minnesota Department of Human Services
Offers organizational assessments as well as recommended strategies for recruitment and retention practices. Focus areas include person-centered workplaces, hiring, turnover, mentoring, supervision, communication, and recognition practices.
From Washington State Health Care Authority
Provides a sample recruitment communications plan with adaptable templates for key messaging, job posting, newsletters, social media, and tactics for gathering testimonials. Messaging is transferrable to respite work.
From Administration for Community Living
A repository of resources that inform and identify recruitment and retention strategies for agencies employing direct care workers.
From University of Minnesota Institute on Community Integration (ICI)
A textbook offering chapters on retention, recruitment, supervision, mentoring, training, workforce development, specific diagnoses, and more. Shared with permission from the ICI Publications Office.
From American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
A textbook offering chapters on workforce solutions, elevating direct support professionals, attracting and recruiting, hiring, credentialling, leveraging technology, supporting health and wellness, and more.
From NADSP (National Association of Direct Support Professionals)
This Train-the-Trainer curriculum provides organizations with knowledge and expertise to train frontline supervisors in leadership development, difficult conversations, working with a multi-generational workforce, team building, and more. Paid training.
From Women's Empowerment Principles
Provides background on the business-related impacts of mentoring programs, examples of mentoring programs as well as various frameworks and models for replication, tools for implementation, and evaluation and sustainability information.
From U.S. Department of Energy
An example of an existing mentorship program with guidance on setting up the proper framework, sample program documents such as discussion questions between mentors and mentees, mentor-matching practices, and evaluation considerations.
From National Association of Community Health Centers
Provides sample language for Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions in recruitment messaging. Includes templates for social media, pipeline building, and career mapping. Features Persona-Based Messaging for recruiting ideal candidates like former clients and retired professionals.
From National Association of Community Health Centers
Offers templates and sample language for social media recruitment, as well as general information about specific platforms to inform strategy.
From the Frameworks Institute
Explores public perception of direct care work, and how views change in the context of current-day culture. Includes Year One and Year Two findings from the Culture Change Project.
From Health & Human Services Department of Michigan
A toolkit for employers containing resources for launching an employee mental wellness program, activities and communications templates, worksheets and team exercises, and slide decks.
From What Works Centre for Wellbeing
Offers a validated question set to measure the wellbeing of employees in an organization. Gathering this type of data can offer insight to an employer on the activities and programs needed to better support employees.
From LeadingAge
Offers a template to create individual development plans that focus on personal and professional development of frontline caregivers. Provides templates, scripting, discussion questions, and additional sources.
From University of Minnesota Institute on Community Integration (ICI)
A podcast series produced by and for direct service providers. Discusses a variety of topics over many episodes, including promoting resilience, trauma-informed care, eating healthy on a budget, and more. Shared with permission.
From PHI
A signature curriculum that builds essential communication and problem-solving skills through training and support. Goals include strengthening teams, building relational skills, improving problem solving, and growing respectful relationships for better quality care.
Research supporting the need for healthy recruitment and retention models across the direct care workforce.
PHI. (2020, October 26). The 5 Pillars of Direct Care Job Quality. PHI.
Campbell, S., Del Rio Drake, A., Espinoza, R., & Scales, K. (2021, January 12). PHI.
Pettingell, S. L., et al. (2022). Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 60(2), 113–127.
Hewitt, A., Pettingell, S. & Kramme, J. (2019). University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration.
Madden, R., & Coffey, L. (2025). Health & Social Care in the Community, Article ID 9828118.
Health Management Associates & Public Sector Consultants. (2023, July 15). Michigan DHHS.
Thwaites, C., Allan, S., Westbrook, J., & Collins, P. (2023). Int. Journal of Env. Research and Public Health, 20(22).
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