Personal Support Worker

The two-semester Personal Support Worker (PSW) program teaches students the skills required to provide or assist with personal care for the elderly, the chronically ill, and persons with accessibility challenges. These patients may live in the community, in long-term care facilities or select ambulatory care settings. Courses focus on the skills and abilities needed to create a climate that promotes the optimal physical, social, and emotional well-being of each client.

As a student in the Personal Support Worker program, you will learn how to practice as a member of an interprofessional healthcare team through a variety of clinical placement experiences. These experiences will include supervised placements in institutional and community settings and an interprofessional Simulation Centre experience.

What You’ll Learn

• Work within the personal support worker role in the community, retirement homes, long-term care homes, and/or hospital care settings by all applicable legislation and employer’s job description, policies, procedures, and guidelines.
• Act responsibly and be accountable for your actions while recognizing the boundaries of knowledge and skills within the personal support worker role that require collaboration with the clients, families, supervisors, and/or other members of the interprofessional care/service team.
• Participate as a member of the interprofessional care/service team and maintain collaborative working relationships in the provision of supportive care in the community, retirement homes, long-term care homes, and/or hospital care settings.
• Provide client-centered and client-directed care that is based on ethical principles, sensitive to diverse client and family values, beliefs, and needs, and follows the direction of the plan of care/service plan.