training materials
Teaching and Learning to Care: Training for Caregivers in Long Term Care
A Modular Instruction Series for Staff Development produced by the Geriatric Education Center of Greater Philadelphia (GEC-GP), a division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Introduction
At its heart, long-term care is a
human enterprise of people taking care of others in need. All staff can
make important contributions to observation, assessment, reporting and
responding to client/resident needs. Well-educated and skilled
caregivers are the primary creators of quality physical and emotional
care of residents. Caregivers who truly understand the needs of the
person they are talking with or dressing make all the difference.
Teaching and Learning to Care: Training for Caregivers in Long Term Care (TLC for LTC) has been produced under the leadership of faculty from the University of Pennsylvania's Schools of Medicine and Nursing in collaboration with many community based professionals and facilities. TLC for LTC is a series of instructional modules directed to meeting the needs of Staff Development Educators (SDEs), those in long term care who are responsible for staff education, and instructors, or those who teach an individual class session.
Goal
The ultimate goal of this series is to
enable long-term care staff to improve care of the frail elderly through
staff development, which, in turn, supports quality care and
improvement. And to enable long-term care staff to improve care of the
elderly by improving staff skills as observers, reporters, and providers
of individualized care.
Principles
The many collaborators who helped
produce TLC for LTC shared several core principles about the functions
of staff development and its objectives for direct care staff. Simply
stated, these include that:
Staff development is integral to quality improvement. Individualized care of residents is the standard of care. Accurate assessment of and appropriate responses to resident behavior are core skills that CNAs and other direct care staff need if a facility or program is to provide individualized care.