Ideas for CNA recognition?

Everyone likes free food! How about a free meal? When I was full time and had the money I would occasionally spring for a pizza for my crew on short staffed days. Or how about bring in something baked from home?

What does everyone else do?

i agree with the free food thing. a good idea would be for all the nurses to get together and plan a luncheon with every nurse bringing something. one facility i worked at also gave water bottles with a nice poem on it that described the good work CENA's do.

We are going to do some things that aren't too expensive. We are having a raffle for prizes each day of the week. I have asked the nurses to provide goodies to raffle off and I am going to make a couple of gift baskets as well. Each of them will receive a badge holder which retracts for easy swiping in and out. I have asked other department heads to provide a "goodie" for each day (AND each shift) such as pizza, donuts, Dove ice cream bars. A hospice we work with is going to do a half hour seminar on stress management for the nursing assistants. We have a massage therapist who is going to come in a couple times during the week and grab the NAs, sitting them down for a ten minute chair massage. I am encouraging the nurses to hand write thank you notes also. These are some of the things I did for my nurses for Nurse's Week and I think that it inspired them to do the same for their assistants!:balloons:We are also going to have a Team leader luncheon to do something special for our team leaders. All of the nurses will bring in a food item and we will serve our team leaders in style!

As a new "charge nurse" I was thinking of this very thing today and searched online for some ideas. I came across an essay, written by a CNA. I've emailed the author and asked if I could print and share it with CNAs from time to time to show my appreciation.

Here is the web address to read it:

http://nursingassistantcentral.homestead.com/ImOnlyaCNA.html

To reward the nurse aides on a daily basis, I hang up Thank You Grams by the time clock thanking a nurse aide by name for a specific job well done. They love the recognition and their coworkers comment on it to them. It also boost morale, because others want to get their name up. I also keep a disposable camera in my office and make their pictures then post them on a bulletin board. They love this too. We also keep small things of candies, ,magnets from the dollar store, etc. and hand them out when someone is "caught" going the extra mile. Once a month, I take refreshments to the night shift. We make a big deal out of nurses week and cna week, also.

Thank You Betty! for that wonderful essay link. I got off work an hour ago, today's one of those days I feel emotionally & physically burned out.....

As for recognition for this thread....humm....the only thing I can think of is an advice;...to advise all nurses, that if ever the nurse is having a bad day with tons of work, please don't show or take it out in front of the CNA's, it makes a world a difference because we are also given a task that is crazy for a human body to handle. Today, we had two resident falls, one of them fell twice. A unit of 32 residents with 3 CNA's and one nurse. Alarms going off in different directions. When I went to the nurse to report the fall, she didn't express any anger like other nurses would.....It made the unit feel more like a team when everyone is working together with the same attitude which is compassion to get the job done to the best of our abilities.

everyone loves to have a coupon for fast food. its the type of item anyone can use. i used to bribe discharge planner with them and they really worked. another thing that works are big hershey bars. if you buy them in bulk they are inexpensive. pizza gets boring after a while. whenever i would give the cna's a tough assignment like cleaning out closets, etc. i would love to walk up to the ones that were doing a great job with a certificate of appreciation and i swear tears would well up in some of their eyes. thats all anyone wants a token of appreciation. pens and coffee mugs and magnets arent something anyone can sink their teeth into. :balloons: :)

where i used to work we did an "appreciation box". it was a decorated shoe box with a slit cut in the top to drop little notes of appreciation or compliments in. we used this for every dept. the administrator would sort through them and then hand them out. it was a great feeling to get those little pieces of paper. it always made me feel sooooooo important! :balloons: :)