These wonderful men and women have the best of both worlds! An Instructor can use his/her years of experience and knowledge to help train the next generation of Nurse Aides, one of the top most needed professions in the US.
They impact long term care by teaching all the important factors that the residents, who are now making their homes in care facilities- having gone through the losses that our elders face everyday- need so desperately. Nurse Aide Instructors also get to keep learning themselves and can participate in PDE updates (Pa. Dept. of Ed regulates NA Training) and audits, and Inservices 3x a year, that increase their knowledge base to help make the nurse aide more efficient and effective. Our Instructors at HACC have helped write and edit our own Copyrighted HACC Nurse Aide Training Curriculum, published 2 years ago.
Our course is 104 hrs long, so an Instructor works 13 days a month. They work no holidays or weekends and have other professional nurses to assist them in the case of a class with more than 8 students, and/ or switch classes if need be.
The requirements to be a Nurse Aide Instructor are as follows:
- RN or LPN with current license (no offenses) who has 2 years experience, one of which has to be in long term care.
- Must attend Train the Educator through Penn State University. (A 3 day class which is run monthly through out Pennsylvania.)
- A Criminal History Report, secured through the Pa. State Police.
An LPN can teach up to 49% of the entire class. Instructors are given a thorough orientation with a “well seasoned” Instructor and the paperwork is carefully reviewed with each new instructor . Most of HACC’s classes are during the day but we do have a few that run 3- 10PM for students who need to work during the day. Several of our Instructors prefer evenings too, for various reasons. The first 3 days of class are mandatory and any time missed after that must be made up. Instructors will teach the theory and basics that must be learned before taking the students into a clinical setting. 24 skills are taught to each student during the classes and they are tested on each one on lab day, before they go to an actual nursing home to care for residents. An Instructor works very hard to make sure each student knows every step in performing a skill, such as transfers or mouth care. After the student successfully passes our training they are then competent to take the testing through the ARC that enables them to have their name placed on the Pa. Nurse Aide Registry. And, his or her career begins!
Students come from everywhere! Some from nursing homes or assisted living communities; hospitals, agencies and some come on their own just as a 1st step to another health care career, some to fulfill their dream of helping and caring for people. Aides are the most important person, other than the resident, on the care team. They are the ears and eyes for that resident. They spend the most intimate time with them as they provide personal care. Residents wait every day for their one special aide and when he or she walks through the door, the residents light up like a Christmas tree. There is so much love that flows back and forth between the aide and the resident- and the resident’s family! Instructors love being a part of that joy and love, teaching a caring and loving person to be a caregiver with skills that provide the safest, most loving personal care to these wonderful older people, who have lost their independence, sometimes their spouses, their friends, maybe their sight, hearing, memory, and dignity.
A nursing assistant, with the proper Instructor and materials, can help provide so much to help that elderly person receive the attention and quality of life he or she so richly deserves. The elderly are our history and- they are our future, if only we listen and show patience and give them respect they long for.
I have worked with Nurse Aides through out my 25 year nursing career- I can’t tell you how richly I have been impacted and how much I have learned. Whether it be in hospice or dementia or rehabilitation, the aides are the key to survival for so many elderly residents.
Help give them that chance. When you stand at the graduation service as a Nurse Aide Instructor, and see their beaming faces and know that you have helped students overcome their fears and worries, that you have just provided a qualified and capable new caregiver, and you’ll be as proud as that student’s family and maybe, even shed a tear of pride, just like they do!
For more information please call 717-221-1352 and ask for Jackie.
Or 1-800-222-4222 and ask for nurse aide.
email: jafoster@hacc.edu
Last updated: August 2005