Senior caregivers must perform a wide variety of job duties, making it difficult to hire just anyone for the trusted job of senior caregiver. Because of this, many states now require senior caregivers who work as a professional caregiver to complete specific state-mandated caregiver training.
Caregiverlist’s Certified Caregiver training, powered by aQuire, meets the training standards created by senior care industry executives and passed into law in the state of Illinois. Members of the Illinois National Private Duty Association, which included the founder of Caregiverlist, were instrumental in establishing this training to set a basic standard for caregiver skills in illinois. The Illinois Home Health Home Services & Home Nursing Agency Licensing Act requires health care workers to be part of a Health Care Worker Registry and to complete a minimum of 8 hours of senior caregiver training.
Many states do not yet have training requirements as part of a state law, but the states of Washington, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Nebraska and Delaware require 75 hours of training which is almost as much training as is required for Certified Nursing Aides or C.N.A.’s.
Senior care companies in states that do not require training usually do provide at least 10 hours of training along with on-going training for the senior caregivers to keep up with the latest skills for assisting seniors with age-related illnesses.
A recent Northwestern University study by Dr. Lee Lindquist noted that there is often a lack of consistency for training in caregivers who are not working for professional senior care companies. Lack of training can result in inability to effectively communicate with seniors with memory loss and provide proper care for age-related illnesses. Because of this, more states are beginning to pass legislation requiring training as the Baby Boomer population ages and will result in more than 77 million seniors.
C.N.A. training varies slightly in each state but consistently is provided by schools approved to implement the C.N.A. training and then the students must pass the state C.N.A. exam. Caregiverlist provides a free sample C.N.A. test and a C.N.A. practice test.
Caregiver Certification for 10-hours can also be purchased online and taken at the caregiver’s own pace – once passed at the 80% level, the caregiver will receive a certificate to print out. Senior caregivers with personal or professional caregiving experience may apply for a senior caregiver job in their area.
