‘Working closely with our colleges and other important health care training partners, we can help many people prepare for new and rewarding careers’
Ontario is investing $4.1 million to help train 373 new Personal Support Workers (PSWs) and provide them with additional health and safety resources.
“Our government is taking comprehensive action to help people develop new and incredibly important skills that will benefit some of the most vulnerable people in our province,” said Monte McNaughton, minister of labour, training and skills development. “Working closely with our colleges and other important health care training partners, we can help many people prepare for new and rewarding careers, while solving a decades-long problem, which is a shortage of PSWs in Ontario.”
The funding will ensure that seniors and residents in long-term care homes are cared for by the best PSWs, and that PSWs are connected with meaningful work. It will also be used to develop educational resources to minimize PSWs' exposure to infections.
The funding is supporting eight projects, including:
- $295,500 for Canadore College to connect 20 unemployed jobseekers from the local Ontario Works caseload with PSW training
- $941,000 for the Canadian Career Academy of Business & Technology Inc to support the Pathway2PSW project in Lanark and Renfrew Counties in training 60 participants. This project features a health care assessment, formal health care training and virtual reality learning.
- $265,810 to Mohawk College of Applied Arts & Technology to provide employers with up to 20 job-ready, skilled workers, and provide participants with employment and training services in the health care sector.
“Thank you to @DrFullertonMPP & @MonteMcNaughton for this investment in Ontario’s PSW workforce. ParaMed is proud to be the lead organization for 3 of the 8 PSW training projects, and to be partnering on investments that are fast-tracking PSWs into care positions,” said ParaMed Home Health in a tweet.
In November 2020, Ontario announced it is increasing the hours of direct care for each long-term care resident to an average of four hours per day.
“Personal Support Workers are the backbone of long-term care and do important work to ensure that our loved ones receive the quality of care they need and deserve,” said Dr. Merrilee Fullerton, minister of long-term care. “Modernizing long-term care means making it a better place for residents to live, and a better place for staff to work, which we will achieve through coordinated partnerships and programs across government.”
In its 2020 Budget, the government committed an additional $180.5 million over three years to help existing workers improve their skills.
