The Field:
Becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) or Home Health Aide (HHA) is how many people first enter the health care industry.
CNAs and HHAs help patients with their basic, everyday needs. They usually, but not always, work with older people in long-term care facilities. They feed patients, measure their vital signs, talk to them about how they’re feeling, take them for walks–even help them groom and dress themselves. They help people do a lot of really important things they might not be able to on their own.
But that isn’t the only reason CNAs are important. They also tend to have more one-on-one contact with patients than the rest of the staff. And those personal relationships can be very important to a patient’s wellbeing. Patients and families value the time and companionship that CNAs provide.
The Outlook:
CNAs are in extremely high demand. Assisted living homes, hospitals, retirement communities and other skilled nursing facilities all employ them–and often have a hard time filling the positions they have. Demand should only increase in the coming decades, as the number of elderly Americans is expected to continue rising.
You can find more information about being a CNA or Home Health Aide, like how many jobs are available and how much they typically pay, at our online Career Coach.
To succeed as a CNA, you have to be caring, good with people and able to work under pressure. But to become one, you’ll need the skills, experience and education it takes to become certified.
Our Program:
In our nursing skills lab, you can learn by gaining hands-on experience. Our ten-bed, on-campus skills lab has all of the equipment a CNA will use in the workplace. And after you’ve spent some time building confidence there, you’ll get 120 hours of experience working with patients as part of a healthcare team in an off-campus care facility.
The entire program takes just one semester (16 weeks) and prepares you to take the National Nurse Aide Assessment Program (NNAAP) certification exam and, once certified, begin your career in the health care industry.
While you’re here, you’ll have the support of great, caring teachers, counselors, a career center and students just like yourself, who want to see you succeed. Our CNA program might even have grants to help you pay for things like uniforms, books, equipment and the licensing exam. We are with you all the way.
If you’re interested in applying, come by and pick up an application packet from the our office. And while you’re working on that, you might want to see if we can help you pay for school.