Santiago Canyon College’s nursing program enables students to become certified nursing assistants and sets them on the path to employment in the growing health care field. Soon, three more medical certifications will be added to the program.
Employment in health care is expected to grow much faster on average than other occupations from 2022 to 2032, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“There is no lack of jobs,” said Christine Gascon, SCC’s dean of instruction and student services, continuing education. Gascon oversees the short-term vocational department, which offers certificates that qualify students for specific jobs. “One of the biggest areas that’s booming in my division is health care,” she said.
By state law, noncredit continuing education programs at community colleges like Santiago Canyon College are tuition-free. “We’re really here for the basic needs of our community,” Gascon said.
For-profit institutions offer similar programs to achieve these same certifications but for a fee of $1,500 or more, according to Gascon. But at SCC, the medical occupations certificate programs can be obtained at no cost. “We want to be the not-best-kept secret in Orange County, but we really are,” she said.
The continuing education department attracts people from the community who want to further their education, she explained. “It might be that they didn’t get their high school diploma, so we have a full high school diploma program. It might be that they’re recent immigrants and they don’t speak English, so we have a full ESL program. We also have a citizenship program. All these programs assist them to come up to a level where they would be successful in going to a full college, if that is their route, or going into the workforce.”
SCC’s certified nurse assistant program began about five years ago with one cohort. Today the college offers four cohorts per semester; each cohort consists of about 15 students. The program is one semester, or about 15 weeks long.
Upon completion of the program, students are certified to be nursing assistants. After that, they can sit for their state licensing exam from the California Department of Public Health.
“We have a 96% pass rate on our licensing exam,” Gascon noted. “Once they pass that, they can go out and get a job as a certified nurse assistant.”
This entry-level position can lead to higher-level careers.
For the certified nursing assistant program, SCC has five instructors, including a registered nurse director, who have met the minimum qualifications set by the California Department of Public Health.
Students may take classes in this program during the day or in the evenings, a schedule that accommodates people who have jobs. “We are very flexible in our scheduling,” Gascon said.
As part of the program, students work in simulated hospital situations with mannequins in hospital beds. They also are required to perform 100 hours of clinical work in a skilled nursing facility under the supervision of an instructor and a certified nurse assistant or licensed vocational nurse.
Students in the SCC nursing assistant program are a diverse group, Gascon says, and most are between the ages of 20 to 40.
In addition to the nursing assistant program in the medical occupations certificate program at SCC are programs to become a lactation educator specialist, personal caregiver, medical assistant, medical billing worker, behavior technician who works with children on the autism spectrum, and home health aide.
Enrollment is growing for SCC’s certificate programs. “When we first started, we only were doing one cohort at a time, but we have 50 students going through right now,” Gascon said. “The number of students getting to know about our program and entering our program is expanding all the time.”
The ultimate purpose, Gascon said, is to enable students to earn a living wage as quickly as possible. “That’s our goal. We’re setting them on that pathway and hopefully boosting them into the next step. For example, our CNAs could then go into a program for LVN or registered nurse, or they can move beyond that because now they’ve got experience.”
Programs like this in California’s community colleges are supported by the governor. “It’s a big, big push in our state to get people to have skills,” said Gascon, “so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
She sees it as a clear return on investment for the county and state to have qualified workers who can bring their skills into the local economy. These programs are a great value “for the person, for the community, for their children,” she said.
