Health Care Assistant(formerly Resident Care Attendant/Home Support)

Overview

Have a caring and compassionate attitude? Strong emotional resolve? Great patience? A sense of professionalism? Consider a career as a Health Care Assistant (HCA).

Graduates of our Health Care Assistant Certificate Program are prepared to work in Extended and Intermediate Care Facilities, Home Support Agencies, Adult Day Care Centers, and Assisted Living residences. While the majority of program graduates provide care for seniors, our program prepares you to care for adults with a wide variety of chronic health conditions.

To meet the needs of our aging population, health regions across BC are opening thousands of new residential and assisted living units; the staffing needs for Health Care Assistants have never been greater. This is an excellent time to consider training and employment in this rewarding field as opportunities abound!

Here's more information about this important career choice...

Typical Job Duties

As a Health Care Assistant, you'll be working with elderly people who will depend on you for quality daily care, encouragement, and support. Your challenge will be to foster and maintain the client's independence and trust. You will be looking after people who have diminished abilities for self-care. Their friends and families must feel that they can trust you to look after their loved ones.

Workplaces include care facilities, hospices, and even seniors' private homes. You'll need to develop skills in offering personal care, assisting with mobility, understanding basic anatomy and physiology, developing good communication skills, and caring for a person with dementia.

Working with the elderly may also involve palliative care, which emphasizes easing the person's pain, enhancing their quality of life, and supporting their family.

While working in a care home, you will need to follow instructions from directors of care, registered nurses, and staff. You'll also be required to make observations and to note problems. Listening and communicating with healthcare professionals and residents are key abilities.

Potential Employers

As a Health Care Assistant, you could find employment in a:

Extended, intermediate, or assisted living care facility

Based on employment statistics gathered by Stenberg College, the wage range of students who completed the Health Care Assistant program and are working in their field of study is $17 to $21 per hour.

Use the following sites to obtain more career information. The related national occupation classification numbers – a system used to group jobs – is "3413”. Please realize that these figures are based on groupings of a large number of related jobs. Wages and career outlook may differ due to education level, job location, and type of employer.

The following list shows some other sources for career research. By no means is this a comprehensive list, but it is a place to start:

Students must provide the following to their Program Advisor prior to program start:

Please note: A valid driver's license and access to personal transport is recommended for HCA190: Home Support / Assisted Living Practicum. Students who are not able to provide their own transport may have difficulty meeting the requirements of this component.