18 Free Online Caregiver Courses with Certificates

1. Mental Health & Resiliency in Aged Care Facilities by EdApp

Caring for others can have a negative impact on your caregivers' mental and emotional health. It's critical to be mindful of stress factors and the hazards they can face in this line of work.  Mental Health & Resiliency in Aged Care Facilities is a free microlearning course that helps your caregivers increase their mental health awareness and promote their emotional resilience. This free online caregiver course covers the 3R's paradigm of resistance, resiliency, and recovery, as well as mental health concerns and how to develop resilience. It concludes by listing several mental health hotlines in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

This course is easier to follow compared to your average online courses, thanks to EdApp's user-friendly microlearning model. With microlearning, big chunks of information are chopped down to their bite-sized versions. This gives your learners an easier time to digest the training and retain the knowledge better.

Cost: Free

Scope:

• The 3R’s model
• Mental health risks at work
• Fostering resiliency
• Mental health hotlines (USA, UK, Australia) 

Created by EdApp

3. Mealtime Management by EdApp

Mealtime management is critical to guaranteeing your patients' wellness. If your caregivers don't manage meals properly, it can make your patients' recovery slower or even cause their disorders to become worse. Regardless of the illness, your caregivers need to be able to provide the best possible care for patients who have difficulty fulfilling their dietary needs – whether due to dysphagia, intellectual difficulties, or an inability to be fed orally. That’s why EdApp’s Mealtime Management course is perfect for your learners.

This free online caregiver course introduces them to the fundamentals of good nutrition, mealtime management for dysphagic patients, and enteral nutrition or more commonly known as tube feeding. The training lists down the importance of mealtime management and the steps your caregivers can take to improve their current management process. After taking this course and applying what they’ve learned, you’ll be able to see improvements not only in their mealtime management practices but also in your patients’ health as well.

Cost: Free

Scope:

• Effective nutrition for people with disabilities
• Managing dysphagia
• Mealtime management for patients with dysphagia
• Enteral nutrition

Created by EdApp

5. Introduction to Safe Patient Handling by EdApp

In the United States alone in 2020, there were over 2.7 million injury and sickness cases that happened in the private sector. With how fragile some patients can be, it’s important that your caregivers take extra care when they’re handling their patients. 

This training explains how to minimize workplace injuries while enhancing patient care quality. They'll go over three microlessons that'll offer them an overview of the advantages of safe patient handling, strategies for identifying health dangers, and techniques for properly lifting, transferring, and repositioning patients. The techniques presented can be used in a variety of situations, including patient bathing and walking assistance. 

Cost: Free

Scope:

• Safe patient handling
• Health hazards
• Lifting, transferring, and repositioning

Created by EdApp

6. Sepsis Awareness by EdApp

Sepsis is a life-threatening infection that can happen if your patients are unable to combat infections within their bodies. It’s important for your caregivers to take a sepsis awareness course so they can help combat sepsis if it happens to their patients.

Designed with Point of Impact by Disruptiveplay, EdApp’s Sepsis Awareness course defines what sepsis is and the early warning signs if their patients are suffering from it. It’ll teach them the proper steps to take when they’ve identified that their patient has sepsis and how best they can support them. The last two lessons are dedicated to post-sepsis care and what to watch out for during recovery. After taking the course, they’ll be able to both prevent sepsis from worsening and better support their patients.

Cost: Free

Scope:

• Definition of sepsis
• Identifying sepsis
• Post-sepsis life
• Antimicrobial resistance

Created by EdApp

8. Medication Management by EdApp

Medication management can be considered the most crucial part of caregiving. Proper management can help symptoms subside and make recovery go faster. EdApp’s Medication Management course teaches your caregivers everything they need to know about this field.

This free caregiver training program with certificates tackles the definition and importance of medical management, the strategies and practices your caregivers can apply, and how to handle the medication properly. The course also teaches them how to deal with difficult patients and symptoms to observe if the medication isn’t working for them. Proper storage and waste management are also explored within the course so your caregivers won’t accidentally spoil important medication or cause any hazardous risk to someone else.

Cost: Free

Scope:

• Introduction to medication management
• Medicine administration techniques
• Proper handling, storage, and waste disposal

Created by EdApp

10. Suicide Caregiving by EdApp

Caregiving extends beyond caring for aging family members or children. It extends to others who're in need. Suicide Caregiving is a sponsored free online caregiver course presented on EdApp in partnership with Suicide is Different. This training will provide your caregivers with the skills and support they need to deal with the difficulties of being a suicide caregiver. They'll learn about the role of a suicide caregiver, how to generate empathy around suicide, disprove suicide misconceptions, and how to communicate effectively about suicide. They'll also learn how to take better care of themselves by recognizing suicidal behavior in themselves and others. According to the course, they’ll be able to do that by getting better knowledge of suicide, negotiating change, creating boundaries, and reassessing self-care.

Cost: Free

Scope:

• Exploring the role of a suicide caregiver
• Empathy around suicide
• Debunking myths

Created by EdApp

12. Alzheimer’s Disease & Dementia Care

Alzheimer’s Disease & Dementia Care is a course offered by the digital learning platform edX. Useful in eldercare and for those working in nursing homes, the course provides an overview of Alzheimer’s disease, including its pathophysiology, risk factors, and how it’s diagnosed. It also goes over the stages, symptoms, and medications of this disease. You will also explore the topic of dementia caregiving and the challenges and experiences you might have caring for a person with dementia. Unfortunately, this course is archived on edX. What it means is that while you have access to all the course materials for free, you will be unable to receive a caregiver certification online upon completion.

Cost: Free

Scope: 

• What Alzheimer’s disease is
• Risk factors, stages
• Symptoms and mediations
• Dementia caregiving
• Caregiving challenges and experiences

Created by edX

14. Family Caregiver Online Training

To add to list of online free certificate courses, you may explore Generations Home Care’s Family Caregiver Online Training course, which covers 40 hours of training and over 25 hours dedicated particularly to Alzheimer’s and dementia. Besides covering the two disorders, you will also learn about human needs and development, emergency first aid, skincare, life care, care planning, and more. Additionally, you’ll go over other health and nutrition topics like preventing weight loss and improving diet. Lastly, this course also discusses different perspectives and communication methods that can be applied in caregiving and caregiver support. 

Cost: Free

Scope: 

• Alzheimer’s and dementia training
• Emergency first aid
• Skincare, life care, care planning
• Health & nutrition
• Different perspective and communication methods

Created by Generations Home Care

16. Great Beginnings: An Introduction to Child Care 

Caregiving isn’t limited to just giving care to the elderly, but also to children. Care Courses offers An Introduction to Child Care, an eight-hour course that provides an overview of what caretakers need to know before working with kids. You will learn about the physical and cognitive development of young children and the role an adult plays in their learning and development. Additionally, you will learn how to keep children safe and how to handle accidents and injuries. By being equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge, you can help in preventing development disabilities from occurring.

Cost: US$46 

Scope: 

• Physical and cognitive development
• The role of an adult in learning and development
• How to keep children safe
• How to hand accidents and injuries

Created by Care Courses

18. The Fundamentals of A Home Care Caregiver

myCNAjobs.com offers a wide range of caregiver certifications for those who want a quick and easy way to get into the profession. This fundamental home care course covers the skills and responsibilities of home care caregivers, understanding a care plan, observing and reporting, and stress management. Each course is self-paced and available online so learners can take this at their own time, and take the assessment at their own pace.

Cost: Free

Scope: what is a caregiver, home care skills and responsibilities, care plans, observing, reporting, and documenting, stress management

Created by myCNAjobs.com