Personal Care Preferred Group (PCPG), a network of home healthcare companies, regularly offers Personal Care Aide (PCA) training classes for those individuals looking to pursue a career in healthcare. The classes are offered several times a year throughout PCPG’s service area, including the Tri-Cities, Stony Creek, Franklin, Emporia and other areas within south central Virginia.

Once the 40-hour-a-week class is completed, participants are guaranteed employment with PCPG. Tuition is free, provided graduates successfully complete a trial work period at PCPG after graduation.

“With the unemployment rate skyrocketing, these training classes are an excellent way to solidify gainful employment,” said Barbara Thurman, public relations and marketing director for PCPG.

Personal and home care aides help people who are elderly, disabled, ill, and/or mentally disabled to live in their own homes. Most personal and home care aides work with elderly or physically or mentally disabled clients who need more extensive personal and home care than family or friends can provide. Some aides work with families in which a parent is incapacitated and small children need care. Others help discharged hospital patients who have relatively short-term needs.

PCAs provide housekeeping and routine personal care services. They clean clients’ houses, do laundry and change bed linens. Aides may plan meals, shop for food and cook. Aides also may help clients get out of bed, bathe, dress and groom. Some accompany clients to doctors’ appointments or on other errands. They report to a registered nurse at the agency.

According to some statistics, employment of personal and home care aides is projected to grow by more than 50 percent between 2006 and 2016, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. This occupation will be amongst those adding the most new jobs, growing by about 389,000 jobs. The expected growth is due, in large part, to the projected rise in the number of elderly people, an age group that often has mounting health problems and that needs some assistance with daily activities. The elderly and other patients, such as the mentally disabled, increasingly rely on home care.

PCPG consists of three individual companies, Personal Touch Home Care, Moore Home Care and Southern Touch Health Care. The group has offices in Stony Creek, Colonial Heights, Waverly, Emporia, Petersburg, Lawrenceville, and a new location in Franklin.

For more information on the PCA class schedule in your area or about Personal Care Preferred Group, please call (434) 246-3110, or visit pcpgonline.com.