Caregivers for Older Persons Graduate Training
A caregiver provides three levels of care: preventative, assistive and educational care. They are the bridge between older persons and society and often times recommend interventions to make life better for senior citizens. Today, a second cohort of persons with skills in the basics of care-giving graduated at the end of an intensive five-week program in Belize City. It is a project that is piloted by BTEC in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the National Council of Ageing and Sister Cecilia’s Home for the Elderly. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
The elderly community makes up approximately six percent of the total population of Belize. The vulnerable group has over the years become victims of neglect and abuse and more recently, violence. The National Council of Ageing has been expressing concerns over the lack of security and the need for additional care for elderly folks. Well today, a second cohort of Belizeans from across the country—seventeen to be exact—took on the challenges and are now certified basic caregivers. The program ended today at the Belize Training and Employment Centre on Freetown Road.
Christine Smith
Christine Smith, Manager, BTEC
“Seventeen persons took the training. This is a training that prepares persons to either go into the homes and work with older persons who are in the homes and want care or persons who are going to be working in different institutions.”
Duane Moody
“How long was the training session and really who coordinated it?”
Christine Smith
“The training was for five weeks—they do one week of soft skills, two weeks of technical facilitated by Doctor Hotchandani and Nurse Kelsey; after which they do two weeks of internship at Sister Cecilia’s Home for the Elderly.”
Eider Teyul, a resident of San Antonio Village in Orange Walk was the only male participant in the five-week program and is now a certified caregiver who wants to assist older persons.
Eider Teyul, Certified Caregiver
“I am a certified caregiver and I plan to use that to help my community. First of all, help myself too in order to better help them too.”
Eider Teyul
Duane Moody
“Where is it that you are going to work? I know that you did some training at the Sister Cecilia Home, but which community are you going to work in and do you want to teach others in terms of working with older persons?”
Eider Teyul
“In terms of working with my community is starting with any emergency in my surrounding because that is what I am prepared for. Also to take care of the elders and patients, in general.”
Director at the National Council on Ageing, Ix-Chel Poot, says that the curriculum designed specifically for the care of older persons to cater to the physical and social needs.
Ix-Chel Poot
Ix-Chel Poot, Director, National Council of Ageing
“These care givers are able now to provide a level of care that we were not able to see before. So they are not only take care of physical needs—which has often been the idea of what care giving is about—but there are also able to look at social needs; what is he complete view of this older persons and how can we support him or her in the home, in the facility where they are residing to ensure that their lives are better because we are there as caregivers.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
