Provide names of other journalists involved.
Rachel Dovey
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
23-May-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
With no licensing or certification, anyone can practice in-home elder care in California — and in wealthy Marin County, opportunity for fraud abounds.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
There is very little data on elder care agencies in California because you only need a business license to run one. I compiled a list of all the elder care agencies in the phone book, called every one of them and created a spreadsheet of how much each charged and how much they paid their workers (some would not tell me how much they paid). I also searched Craigslist for adds that advertised wages. To corroborate the story of Richard, I looked through photocopies of the notarized loans he gave his worker, bank statements and civil court documents. I received a data from the county IHSS, which serves lower-income elders as well.
Explain types of human sources used.
I called every Marin County home health care agency in the phone book, as stated above. Some of those conversations made it into the piece, in the form of quotes. I met with Richard’s family in person and was given access to all of their documents. I met with Michele Boudinot in person, and spoke with Nick Trunzo, head of the Marin County Division of Aging and Adult Services. I spoke with a Home Care Agency that hired a fraudulent worker, a worker who gets paid very little and has difficulty living in such a wealthy area and an elderly disabled woman who was unable to pay high costs for her elder care. I spoke to over 30 people overall to adequately examine this complex issue from all sides.
Results:
This story was chosen by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies as its top story the week it was printed, and distributed nationwide in the AAN newsletter. It was also placed on the Website of USC Annenberg’s Reporting On Health, because it was produced as part of a fellowship I was taking place in with that organization. My newspaper received responses from many people, thanking us for printing this important story.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Because I was not dealing with public agencies, I could not do a FOIA. I had to rely on the agencies to give me data, and not all of them would (some withheld how much they paid their workers). I would just advise other journalists to be persistent and firm in their requests, to keep this kind of data organized in a spreadsheet and to speak with as many people as possible.