Education
Free education! That's right nursing centers, retirement homes, nursing homes and even long-term care facilities offer free education given you plan on staying with their company. Most won't offer the education unless you've been with employed with them for a specific amount of time. Some places it takes 3 months, 6 months and some even a year to take advantage of this great benefit. Face it education can be quite expensive so to find an employer that offers it FREE? Pfff can't pass that offer up its too great of a deal.
Training
It only takes 6-10 weeks to become a CAN sometimes even less than that depending on what school you attend. For me personally my training was 3 ? weeks long I had to attend class 2 days a week (pretty simple if you ask me). This allows you to get trained, certified and most of time employed in a short period of time. There are other training facilities that will train in a much shorter amount of time but I will tell you the course load is a little intense they are cram courses.
Benefits
Most CAN positions offer great with benefits sometimes with no benefits. It really depends on who you are employed by. Here is an example for you; when I was a new grad looking for work as a C.N.A all the agencies I applied for offered me $13.00-$16.00/hr... sounds awesome right? Well... it is and it isn't although the pay is good the scheduling wasn't it was an on call position and I was only getting 20 hours per week. Now all agencies are not like this most of them have plenty of jobs for you where you will get at least 40 hours a week but I needed something more stable with benefits even if that meant receiving a 2-3 dollar pay cut. Hospitals and Nursing Homes are also great places to work with good pay and benefits. If you can get a position at a hospital take it because they will cross train you and there is plenty of room to advance. Last but not least there is always the benefit called "Tuition Assistance" especially if you are planning on advancing and becoming an LPN or RN.
Growing Demand
Look at our economic situation people are losing jobs left and right. Baby boomers account for 30-35% of our population. As they age they create a greater need for Health Care Providers specifically Nurses and C.N.A's also called Certified Nurse Aides. So if you sit and really think about it becoming a C.N.A is not only a quick certification to put under your belt but it's also a way to secure your employment/career for the future.
Improved Income
Most C.N.A's make somewhere between $22,000 -$35,000/yr (yes as new grads). You have some that work through agencies sacrificing benefits for pay then you have C.N.A's that advance their skills and become cross trained in other departments/areas of healthcare thus making themselves more valuable which qualifies them for better pay. Your average C.N.A makes $25,000 annually. Granted to some of you this might not be much but for the time spent in school this is a lot better than most dead end jobs such as: Fast food, retail etc
Cost
The cost for this certification will vary from school to school I paid $500.00 for my certification that paid for the class and the books. My scrubs, stethoscope and blood pressure cuff collective cost 50.00 so in total $550. Other schools will charge $600-1500 and most of the time they include everything you need. If you can try not to spend more than $700.00
Hope this article has helped and I hope some of you decide to jump into the healthcare field.
If you have time please take a look my others articles on thomasthetrainset.org/emily-the-train.html Emily the train and thomasthetrainset.org/battery-powered-thomas.html Battery Powered Thomas Trains @ thomasthetrainset.org
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