Revamped CCA program to begin in August
Uko Akpanuko, Daily Herald
Suncrest College has revamped its Continuing Care Assistant (CCA) program in Melfort in an effort to help alleviate health staffing challenges in the region.
The new program, which will begin August 2025, will see students spend three days in a classroom per week. Suncrest College vice-president of Academics and Learner Engagement Teri Thompson said this will allow students time to find employment and earn while they learn.
“We are pretty excited about the opportunity that it presents to students in terms of their ability to complete their program in a timely manner while still being able to work,” Thompson said in an interview with the Daily Herald. “We know that a large number of CCA students are employed in the field or actively looking to be employed in the field, so this really is a great opportunity that benefits both the employer and the students and doesn’t take the time that a part time program does.”
In a press release, the college said students can work with the Saskatchewan Health Authority while studying in the CCA program, but program scheduling often prevents working students from completing the program within a year. The goal of the new program is to remove that obstacle.
“We have been trying to find ways to make our full time CCA program more attractive to students,” Thompson said. “It’s a high demand program in terms of employment. It is not always a high demand program in terms of student recruitment, so we’ve been actively looking for ways to encourage students to enter into this field, knowing that it meets a regional demand and a huge demand for the SHA.”
Looking to the future, the college said additional recruits will be needed in long-term care homes, home care and acute care facilities. Thompson said student opportunities like the revamped CCA program are vital to addressing regional staffing needs.
“The Ideal for us would be to see this program full of domestic students and to see students really having a great opportunity to engage with the content and the workforce at the same time and to bring that knowledge back into the classroom so they increase their ability to see the relevance of their training, and be better employees from day one,” Thompson said. “Also, I think there’s a huge opportunity here for this to alleviate student debt. To be able to work while you’re going to school is a great opportunity for these students.”
Applications are currently being accepted and the course will run from Aug. 2025 to June 2026 with a capacity of 24 students each batch.
–with files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald
