Continuing on the theme of online resources for CNA’s, Patti gathered several links to sites that offer continuing education opportunities. These are not free and pricing is a bit prohibitive for individual CNA’s. Facilities can certainly afford some of this though.

Frontline Publishing:
Nursing Assistant Monthly has several unique features that make it successful.

1. It was developed with input from an advisory board of national experts in long-term care.

2. It features a high-quality, monthly newsletter for every aide – that highlights a particular topic, with the focus on vital interpersonal issues. This simple fact sends a powerful message to nursing assistants about their value as employees.

3. The facility receives a monthly Facilitator’s Guide – to help in-service coordinators integrate the newsletter into ongoing in-service training activities. This guide provides training tips, continuing education goals, a list of resources, and a quiz for every nursing assistant. Used together, these tools can help fulfill and document all of a facility’s federally- mandated continuing education requirements.

4. It is based on research that shows that the problems of low morale and high turnover can be resolved by addressing the critical interpersonal and psychosocial aspects of the nursing assistant’s role, and Nursing Assistant Monthly is designed to do just that.

Nursing Assistant Monthly is an excellent resource and I highly advise DON’s to order the yearly series.

Knowing More:
In the Know Inservices are in a newsletter-style format and provide one inservice credit hour per topic. We have over ninety inservice topics available in a variety of areas.

Our inservices are designed with two study options in mind, so you may decide what meets your needs. Either way, your aides earn 60-minutes of credit!

Knowing More has an extensive listing of packaged in services; I have no experience with this company but have heard very good things about them.

Institute For Care Giver Education:
The Institute for Caregiver Education (IfCE) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides continuing education and professional development opportunities for healthcare professionals, including a variety of literacy, language, and life skills training for entry level staff across all disciplines. IfCE is a nationally recognized leader in the areas of Culture Change, employee education & retention, positive survey results and improved resident outcomes.

Some titles of programs offered:
Career Development Series
Mentoring For Eldercare Workers
Nursing Assistant Specialist for Elders
Workplace Instruction Now
This last one I listed looks very interesting:

Assessing the Costs of Poor Job Skills

How would you rate the job skills of your frontline caregivers? Low literacy levels, poor math skills, inability to work without supervision, absenteeism, and overall poor work performance cost businesses billions of dollars each year. In the healthcare industry—where so much depends on workers’ ability to read and follow instructions, communicate effectively with co-workers, and demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements—poor job skills contribute to a decline in quality care.

Finally,

HCPRO’s CNA Training Advisor Series:
Do you find it hard to develop new training techniques? With LTC Nursing Assistant Trainer, a biweekly ezine, you’ll no longer struggle to devise new teaching tools because we do it for you.

This e-newsletter, which will arrive automatically in your e-mail inbox on a biweekly basis, provides you with training advice on patient care. Here’s what you can expect from LTC Nursing Assistant Trainer:
* Preventing patient and staff injuries
* How to care for patients with hearing loss
* Understanding the stages of Alzheimer’s disease
* The proper way to shave the male patient
* Tips on safely transferring a patient
* Dealing with patient and staff abuse
* Guidelines on lifting a patient
* Understanding a patient’s rights
* Managing urinary tract disorders

I can personally vouch for this product; it’s high quality and covers relevant topics.

These are just a few of the many resources and web sites avaliable for CNA’s and their supervisors and others. We get a lot of emails asking us for continuing education web sites and decided to list some of them here. In the near future we’ll add a sidebar section with a complete listing.