Free Home Care and Caregiving training scholarship in Nigeria

What you will learn

A ten-week certificate course in home care for older adults, taught inside Marula Home Care, a fictional Lagos agency with a nurse supervisor, a supervising doctor, eight carers and ten clients, six of whose families live in Houston, London, Toronto, Dublin, Atlanta and Manchester. Forty scripted events: the daughter who asks for one more tablet, the fall at five in the morning, the confusion that is an infection, the nephew who leaves with the ATM card, the death at home. Two lanes chosen at enrolment: run a home care agency in Nigeria for families abroad, or take a first care job in the US, UK or Canada if you already have the right to work there.

• The carer's line, and the refusal shape
• Personal care with dignity and consent
• The daily log and the handover note
• Medication reminders from the written record
• Recognising and reporting deterioration
• Dementia care without force
• Safeguarding and financial exploitation
• CPR, choking and the recovery position (decision and order)
• The incident report and the death at home
• Intake, care plan and pricing for a family abroad

Eight weeks at a glance

1. Week 1: The work, the people and the carer's line. What a carer does hour by hour; who decides what between the client, the family here and abroad, the agency, the nurse and the doctor; the line; reminders versus administration; confidentiality; dignity; the daily log and the handover.
2. Week 2: Communication and the family conversation. Talking with older adults; hearing and sight loss; confusion and repeated questions; what a family abroad worries about; the weekly update; the difficult call; boundaries, money and gifts; the nurse, the doctor and the agency.
3. Week 3: Daily living support. Washing, dressing, continence and oral care with dignity; nutrition and hydration; swallowing difficulty and safe feeding; moving and positioning step by step; falls; night care; the home environment.
4. Week 4: Health in the home. Recognising deterioration; the observations a carer can make; reporting with the right words at the right time; common conditions at a carer's level; pain; the medication reminder record; hand hygiene; pressure areas; the doctor's plan; discharge and coming home.
5. Week 5: Dementia, mental health and safeguarding. Dementia at a carer's level; responding without force; wandering and the night; depression and loneliness; the confusion that is an infection; abuse and neglect and the duty to report; financial exploitation when the children are abroad; the carer's own protection and burnout.
6. Week 6: Emergencies and end of life. The emergency call and the first minutes; CPR, choking and the recovery position around the official demonstrations; stroke and heart attack by the clock; seizures, falls with injury and bleeding; fire, gas and power cuts; the incident report; end-of-life care; a death at home; grief.
7. Week 7: The business in Nigeria, or the job abroad. Lane A: home care as a business, the HEFAMAA requirements named, vetting a nurse and a carer, the intake with a family abroad, pricing in dollars and paying in naira, contracts. Lane B: how hiring works for someone with the right to work, the credential each country still requires, background checks, the interview, visit verification, the first month.
8. Week 8: Running it, or lasting in it. Lane A: rotas and cover, supervision visits, the weekly update and the emergency call, incidents and complaints, the family's data and the NDPA, foreign payments, finding clients where families ask. Lane B: mandatory reporting, presenting your transcript, the certifications worth holding, documentation an agency can audit, boundaries, progressing.
9. Week 9: Practicum, part one. Timed shifts on the Marula simulator in your lane: Lane A on the agency desk (intake, care plan, a rota with a no-show), Lane B in the client home (the daily log, a deterioration reported, the family video call). Graded on the log, the report, the call and the decisions.
10. Week 10: Practicum, part two. More shifts: the supervision visit, the incident and the weekly update for Lane A; the emergency drill, the boundary refused and the handover for Lane B. A shift passes only with zero critical errors. Certification week.

Who this track suits

• You notice things: the glass that was not touched, the answer that came a beat late, the smell that was not there yesterday. This work rewards the person who writes that down and tells someone.
• You can be asked to do something kind and still say no, plainly, when it is not yours to do. Families abroad will ask. The course teaches you the words.
• You want to run a home care agency in Nigeria whose clients are families overseas, and you would rather learn intake, care plans, vetting, rotas and pricing on a fictional agency than on your first real client.
• You already live in the US, UK or Canada with the right to work, and you want your first care job to start with the vocabulary, the documentation and the culture already in hand. This course trains skills; it is entirely outside any immigration process and does not open a visa, sponsorship or relocation route.

How to apply

1. 1
   Apply

   Fill in the form. It takes about two minutes. One application per email address, for one pool.

2. 2
   Get accepted

   Acceptance emails go out in batches. Watch your inbox.

3. 3
   Start learning

   Open your first course or your track the same day. You have six weeks to finish your first course or Week 1.

More about the scholarship

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