Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 21/98) - The first home and community support worker program ever to be offered in Fort Good Hope got under way this past week at Aurora College's Community Living Centre.

The college's adult educator Tracy Juzyniec said the program is a home-care course that will teach its participants the skills necessary to offer home care to the elderly and others who may require home-care support.

"We had eight or nine applicants and that's a pretty good start because the maximum student enrolment we could handle right now would be about 12 students," said Juzyniec.

"There is a need for this type of worker in Fort Good Hope. We usually have homeworkers in the community who go into the homes of elders and do housework and that type of thing, but they're not really trained."

"They don't know how to do that much personal care and that's the area we hope to improve upon with this course."

Juzyniec said the request for home-care workers came from the Inuvik Health Board and its home-care co-ordinators.

She said the home and community support worker course will run in Fort Good Hope for four months and then the instructor will head to Aklavik for four months to train students there.

The first students to take the course will study CPR and first aid, and they'll also learn about nutrition and the human body and taking care of the home.

Course instructor Loretta Manning said the course's first week was an exciting one.

She said students in her first class are already showing themselves to be very positive, eager and enthusiastic learners.

"I'm eager to see my students succeed in this program," said Manning.

"I'm very pleased with both their enthusiasm in approaching the course and their early participation."

"They jumped right in and already work well as a group."