How One Agency Provides Training and Caregiver Skills to both Family and Staff Care Providers

The 84 personal care aides on staff at Helping Hands receive their initial training and training tune-ups through the 18-hour National Caregiver Training Program, available from Medifecta Healthcare Training. "We do the initial training as an intensive learning experience, in two days. Then, after the classroom training is done, the new provider goes into the home to learn by observing another, more experienced provider. Our staff caregivers really like the classroom training we provide. They appreciate the solid foundation they get," Looker said.

"We also use the training program to give staff members refresher courses, because everyone needs to refresh skills from time to time," she said. "Of course, we work with family caregivers, too. Sometimes they come into our intensive classes, but more often we will bring the training to them in the home and work with them that way."

"It helps family members to learn the skills, because they have to provide them, and it also gives them an idea of what to expect, and what the staff caregiver has to do. It gives the family more awareness of the work of the staff caregiver."

Looker is a strong advocate for the care recipient. "My brother is handicapped, so all my life, because of being close to him, I've been sensitive to how a person may be ignored or overlooked, how people will talk past them as if they were not there." She regards patience and flexibility as two important qualities for caregivers.

"The care recipient doesn't have a choice. They are just in the situation. So I try to teach people to look at that, to think of ways that help to keep that person in good humor. For instance, even though everyone is very aware of low fat diets, and very judgmental about it, sometimes it might be the best thing for the care recipient to have ice cream for breakfast."

Looker has been know to resort to role-playing techniques to help family members experience what their relative is going through. "Sometimes I blindfold them, and give them a plate of peas and other small foods. After they have tried to manage to eat that blindfolded, they have more sympathy for their family member with macular degeneration, and they are not so fixed about table manners. They get used to the idea of finger foods."

Looker has also been known to take the video, How to Communicate with Someone Who Has Alzheimer's Disease, with her when she accompanies clients to the doctor's office. "Sometimes, MDs just don't have a good background or understanding of the human dimension. They ignore the patient, and act as if they are not there. When I meet this kind of physician, I lend them the video, and after they've watched it, they have a better idea of how to relate. They realize that there is still a person in there."