It’s National CNA Week, a yearly event honoring the important work nursing assistants do in facilities offering all types of patient care.
CNAs carry out some of the most important day-to-day tasks associated with patient care, including daily cleaning and assistance with basic tasks. This isn’t just essential for keeping patients comfortable and engaged with their care, but also for helping them stay safe by avoiding bed sores and falls.
Yet despite this critical work, nursing assistants and aides aren’t always given the respect and appreciation that they deserve. Making some effort to let them know they’re valued can help them take more pride in their work, and improve morale too. To help the cause, here are a few ways to honor and celebrate the CNAs working in your facility, and everywhere else, too.
7 Ways To Celebrate Nursing Assistants For CNA Week 2021
#1: Say a simple thank you. The easiest and probably most effective way to honor CNAs on CNA Week is by simply saying thanks. This can be on a personal level, with a sincere thank you from the rest of the staff. Or it can be a formal, professional effort — say a company-wide email or PA announcement, or a series of thank you greeting cards.
Whichever way you choose to say thanks, it’s important to make sure that you do so with each individual CNA on your staff. And it’s a great habit to get into all year around, too. Showing CNAs that they’re appreciated every day is great for their morale, and for the patients they care for!
#2: Promote CNA Week throughout your facility. Put up signs and decorations celebrating nursing assistants in appropriate parts of your facility. This will not only help CNAs feel appreciated, but it can also help let other workers and patients know that it’s CNA Week, so they can be inspired to say thanks, too.
#3: Share some CNA love on social media. If your facility or organization is active on Facebook, Twitter, LInkedIn or another social format, take the opportunity to highlight CNA Week and encourage your network to do the same.
#4: Help your community value the work of CNAs. Hold a CNA Week event at your facility or within your community centered on the important of nursing assistants.
#5: Offer up some free lunch. While giving gifts to staff members can be tricky, it’s completely acceptable to offer the CNAs on your team some free lunch — or a longer lunch break!
#6: Get the entire staff in the CNA appreciation spirit. Offering buttons or lapel pins to wear can help motivate your entire staff to join in the spirit of CNA Week. Even better, free lunches and special events will go even farther to bring folks together with the goal of helping your nursing assistants feel appreciated.
#7: Offer some extra help when needed. Especially during the past year of Covid-focused care, many CNAs have been working extra shifts to meet the escalated need of intense patient care. Some facilities have helped relieve the burden on these workers by hiring extra aides to help out with some basic tasks.
One industrious health and rehabilitation center in Wisconsin met this need by literally bringing in members of the community to serve as aides to nurses and CNAs by providing non-nursing tasks like stocking supplies and delivering laundry, as reported by the Wisconsin Health Care Association (WHCA).
While some of the volunteers quickly “learned that healthcare was not the right fit for them, seven of the Aide’s Angels have enjoyed their work so much they enrolled in the Emergency Nurse Aide Training Program and are on the path to becoming CNAs,” the WHCA report explained.
Celebrate CNA Week By Hiring Nursing Assistants!
If your facility is in need of CNAs or other nursing or clinical professionals, you can rely on CareerStaff’s nationwide network of healthcare workers to fit the bill! Learn more about our CNA staffing and recruitment services here, or submit a staffing request now.
Last Updated on November 30, 2021