Becoming a CNA instructor?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am interested in becoming a CNA instructor, I am a charge nurse with plenty of RN experience, I was also a CNA for years. A few questions, do you have to take any classes to become an instructor? If so where do you find those classes, through a college or somewhere else? Can you be a CNA instructor and hold a full time job? i tried googling it without much luck so thanks for the responses!

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Specializes in Peds, Float, Ambulatory, Telemetry (new).

Great question. That is something I would like to do at some point in my career. But I googled and I found a "how to" page How to Become a CNA Instructor: 6 Steps - wikiHow and could give you (us;)) some guidelines on how to go about it. And you can also write "CNA instructor" into the search box in the upper right hand corner. I saw some links to some conversation about it, maybe you can get some answers from there too.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

PP has a good reference for more info. The first step is that you need to be a certified instructor first to teach an approved course. Whoever licenses your CNAs (State BON or DOH) can head you in the right direction for that first step. That's where I'd start first because each State may differ how they offer the classes.

With that certification, you can find employment as an instructor within different settings. In-house facilities (hospitals or NHs), county community colleges or vo-tech schools, and for-profit trade schools, all run programs. Even the Red Cross runs programs. But the instructors are certified and they teach approved curriculums. Within those settings, you would have a variety of working hours to meet your wishes. I've seen CNA programs run during in-house work time, on weekends, in the evening, in the summer; it varies. So you could work somewhere FT, and do the CNA course PT. Or you could do the reverse - be a FT instructor somewhere and work PT at a facility.

I'm not sure where your actual work experience comes from, but a lot of CNA programs do their clinical hours within NH settings, so it is advantageous that you have LTC experience. Being a CNA previously helps you also.

Good luck.

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Thank you both. Great information! I am currently a charge nurse of a 61 bed skilled/nursing home facility and my last job I worked on a skilled unit but was supervisor of long term care and assisted living too. I will call my BON tomorrow to find out more, thanks again for the info!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

I think it's great that you are so enthusiastic about taking this new direction for your career. As a nurse educator, I also encourage you to improve your knowledge/skills in the discipline of education. You will be working with a students that can be very challenging, so you will need to understand enough about the learning process to determine the best approach to take when a student is having problems. Ideally, you can tap into a wise mentor.

There are some books that I recommend for any novice educator. McKeachie's Teaching Tips is wonderful. McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Wilbert McKeachie, Marilla Svinicki: 9781133936794: Amazon.com: Books It was written as a guide for TAs, but it covers just about any 'higher education' situation you can think of. A wonderful resource. Also, anything by Stephen Brookfield - especially this one. Teaching for Critical Thinking: Tools and Techniques to Help Students Question Their Assumptions: Stephen D. Brookfield: 9780470889343: Amazon.com: Books He is internationally known for his innovative approach to teaching critical thinking - applicable to any discipline.

Have fun!

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