When Lived Experience Becomes Professional Training: Why Family Caregiving Deserves CNA Recognition

Care Futures reframes caregiving as professional training - where lived experience meets advocacy and recognition.

By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care

Every day, family caregivers perform tasks that mirror those taught in Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) programs: bathing, dressing, feeding, monitoring cognition, and advocating in medical settings. Yet despite this hands-on expertise, most are excluded from formal recognition, pay, and support.

At Professionals Who Care, we believe lived experience is legitimate training. If you’ve cared for a loved one at home - especially through dementia, injury, or chronic illness - you’ve already built the skill set. What’s missing is the pathway.

This week’s Care Futures edition explores how caregiving becomes advocacy, especially when patients can’t speak for themselves. It also proposes policy solutions to remove barriers to CNA certification for family caregivers in Colorado and beyond.

📖 Read the full article: Care Futures: Family Caregiving as CNA Training and Advocacy   🎧 Listen to the podcast version

If you’re a caregiver, policymaker, or healthcare ally, this is your invitation to reframe care as infrastructure.

References

Elder Home Care — Communication Between Family Caregivers and Healthcare Providers   👉 https://advancednursing.care/senior-care-advice/communication-between-family-caregivers-and-healthcare-providers/  

Discovery Senior Living — Senior Advocacy in Memory Care: What Families Should Know   👉 https://discoverycommonshobesound.com/blog/senior-advocacy-in-memory-care-what-families-should-know

Alzheimer’s Association — Caregiving for Alzheimer’s and Dementia   👉 https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving