Red Cross launches new round of nurse assistant classes

If she told them he needed a bed pan, for instance, Schooley said they told her to let him “go” in the bed. If he needed help during the night, “I couldn’t get anybody to come in and help me.”

“There was just such a lack of care and concern, and that’s putting it nicely,” Schooley said recently. Her father, a semiretired physicist, died at age 82 in August 2011.

What her dad went through, along with how her mother was treated when hospitalized with Alzheimer’s years earlier, motivated Schooley to train to be a certified nurse assistant.

In many ways, her story underscores the need for more qualified health care workers, a shortage that has been deepening in the past few years as the nation’s baby boomers age into retirement by the millions and fall in need of care.

“I told myself as soon as I could find a program, I was going into the health care field,” she said. “I had to try and make a difference.”

According to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, by 2020 the nation will need 1.1 million additional direct care workers — a category that includes certified nurse assistants.

With the increasing need in the health care field, the American Red Cross recently launched a second round of classes to train certified nurse assistants to provide basic care such as feeding, dressing, bathing and monitoring to patients.

It was exactly what Schooley, 51, of Conyers had hoped for, and when she happened upon the program in July, she signed up immediately.

Schooley would bring with her the compassion she believed her parents deserved, and the CNA instructors would teach her how to properly provide the care they needed.

“I downloaded the book right away and started reading it before the class started,” she said. “I was really eager to get started.”

Relaunching a program

The Red Cross first offered the Nurse Assistant Program nearly 20 years ago in response to new federal regulations put in place that required all nursing homes to provide certified nurse assistants, said Marilyn Self, former education director for the program.

In keeping with its long tradition of responding to emerging needs, Self said, the agency signed on to provide a standardized training program to employees of a large nursing home chain.

“They provided much of the funding, and we rolled it out,” Self said. “People were lining up to hire our graduates.”

The program, however, was phased out sometime in 1996, she said, because training had become available in a variety of other formats.

In response to current demand, spiked by increasing numbers of aging boomers, the Red Cross decided early this year to relaunch the program and in September began offering the course at its offices in Decatur. A previous degree is not required.

The four-week program, one of a wide range of health and safety certification programs the Red Cross offers locally, is approved and licensed by the state of Georgia and included hands-on patient care in a private-care setting.

The class, taught by certified nursing professionals, is being offered at 50 locations in 21 states, said Leisa Cross, a Red Cross service delivery manager who oversees the program in Georgia.

Last year alone, Cross said the Red Cross trained more than 10,000 students across the country. So far, in metro Atlanta, six students have graduated.

In areas where the Red Cross has tracked the results, Cross said that Red Cross NAT students typically have a certification pass rate greater than 90 percent — higher than many other test takers.

“I have seen a lot of lives changed with this program,” Cross said.

Eager for a new path

More than anything, Schooley, who graduated from the program on Oct. 3 and is waiting to take the state exam, said she wanted to make a difference.

But like Randall Graham, she also believed the program could launch her into a new career.

Graham, 51, of Lawrenceville said that after he was laid off in February from his sales job, he decided to take his mom’s advice, follow his heart and take the first step toward his dream: becoming an occupational therapist.

Meanwhile, he said, he hopes to land a job as a nurse assistant.

“I see job openings all over the place, and by me being a man, it should be a lot easier because there’s a lot of lifting involved,” he said.

Schooley, who said she hopes to work with the elderly, said the program exceeded her expectations.

“I wish I’d had the opportunity to take it long before all the illnesses in my family,” she said. “I always just dived in there and did what I could. If it were wrong, it was wrong. Now at least I know what I’m doing.”