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Caregivers Corner - May, 2001
Teaching the Educator
On April 25th Institute staff presented at a statewide teleconference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education - Bureau of Career and Technical Education. The annual "Teaching the Educator - Plus" teleconference was provided via satellite to 14 downlink sites across the State. The daylong session on "Fostering Competence in Frontline Caregivers: Strategies to Address Skill Deficiencies" was attended by in-service and staff development coordinators and instructors of the Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Programs (NATCEP) in Pennsylvania.

Among the panel of invited experts were Jeffrey Woodyard, Executive Director of Tri-County OIC in Harrisburg, Michaelene Wiesman, RN, Primary Instructor for the Institute for Caregiver Education's nursing assistant training programs, and Suzanne Fisher, Training Leader at Standard Steel and formerly a lead educator with the Adult Education and Job Training Center in Lewisburg, PA.

Ms. Wiesman began with a discussion of the long term care staffing crisis, describing both the scarcity of trained, effective workers, and the widespread skill deficiencies characteristic of the available pool of entry-level workers available to long term care employers. Next, Mr. Woodyard spoke to employers' need to address deficiencies in workers' basic foundation skills. These are not the technical skills, but rather the soft skills employees need to be effective in the workplace.

Foundation skills include such basic competencies as the ability to: 

Read work-related information with understanding
Listen with understanding
Communicate clearly and concisely, both orally and in writing
Demonstrate effective interpersonal skills, cooperate and work well in teams
Use critical, reflective thinking to problem solve and make decisions
Manage change and stress effectively
Locate and use resources and effectively utilize technology
Function within the organizational structure of the workplace

Mr. Woodyard continued by offering several strategies companies can adopt to help skill-deficient workers improve their performance on the job, and described the Pennsylvania Workforce Improvement Network (WIN) as one option available to organizations trying to address this challenge. Pennsylvania WIN is an effort currently underway that seeks to develop training programs to build on the foundation skills of their incumbent employees. The Department of Education staff provided each downlink site with a directory of the available Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) providers throughout the state for participants interested in accessing these services.

Ms. Wiesman continued the morning session, offering specific techniques nurse aide instructors can use to increase the success rates of their students during training and as they prepare and sit for the State competency examination. She offered a wealth of information to teleconference participants for making learning more active, reinforcing concepts and increasing retention of learning. Exam preparation, test anxiety, guidance for increasing success with multiple choice test questions, and skills test preparation tips were also shared.

Suzanne Fisher announced the newly released training resource for long term care in-service and staff development coordinators that is now being distributed to all skilled nursing facilities in Pennsylvania. The manual, " Retention-Based Skills Training for Long Term Care Employees," was developed for the Department of Education through a grant to the Institute for Caregiver Education. It is the culmination of a three-year pilot project of customized workplace education designed for the long term care setting.  This resource puts at instructors' finger tips all the teaching resources needed to conduct 10 one-hour in-service training sessions to build employee foundation skills. The manual also contains a section on employee coaching, as well as implementation advice for successful nurse aide mentor programs. Ms. Fisher, who played a central role in developing and piloting the educational content, shared background on the manual and offered recommendations for the use of this unique training resource.

Lyn Forlizzi, Nurse Aide Training Coordinator for the Bureau of Career and Technical Education, wrapped up the morning session with an update from the Department of Education on the State Nurse Aide Training Program followed by a brief period for questions and answers. During the afternoon session the downlink sites each conducted facilitated discussions on the topic of "Best Practices for Addressing Skill Deficiencies."

Teaching the Educator - Plus is an annual teleconference event sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Career and Technical Education.

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