Silver Spring, Md (PRWEB) June 07, 2015

By 2030, at least 3.5 million more healthcare professionals will be needed across the United States, a 35% jump from current levels (Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, Institute of Medicine, April, 2008). In Montgomery County, the need is acute. Between 2010 and 2020, estimates state that 1,100 nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants will need to be replaced, and, an additional 3,200 positions will be needed to meet demand (Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation). Alarms should be sounding about this major need for eldercare services, as well as the critical shortage of an available, trained, in-home workforce.

Sandy Kursban, Founder of Family & Nursing Care, Inc. and the Family & Nursing Care Foundation, is confronting this issue head on and making a difference. In addition to providing $ 150,000 in grants during the past 5 years to organizations providing in-home healthcare to low income seniors, the Foundation is now fulfilling its mission by providing free education for students to become well-trained providers of in-home eldercare services. The first Family & Nursing Care Foundation Scholarships will be awarded in August for the 2015 fall semester. Sandy Kursban is actively seeking to foster and encourage partnerships between the private and public sectors to share her vision of sponsoring more of these students so that our rapidly growing senior population will have the option to remain in the safety and comfort of their homes with qualified CNAs. She personally matches every donation dollar-for-dollar from her own pocket.

The Family & Nursing Care Foundation has established a scholarship fund at Montgomery College to support students interested in pursuing training to become Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA). Through a partnership with the college, the Foundation has established a $ 25,000 scholarship; $ 5,000 will be awarded in each year of a five-year period to selected CNA candidates applying for financial assistance. The CNA course of studies is a non-credit, certificate program, which is not eligible for Federal assistance because Federal funding does not cover non-credit programs. The college’s CNA program costs about $ 2,000 per student and includes tuition, text books, clinical training and associated fees.

###

About the Family & Nursing Care Foundation

Established in 2008, the Family & Nursing Care Foundation, a fund of the Community Foundation for Montgomery County, addresses two vital needs in the community – to help support community organizations that provide low-income seniors with the dedicated home care they need to remain in the safety and comfort of their own homes, and to help support homecare training programs for those individuals who want to learn the skills needed to become nurses and nursing assistants so that they may care for our elderly population. For more information, visit http://www.familynursingcare.com/foundation.







Tags