Stabilizing and Strengthening our PSW Workforce
Investing in an historic campaign to accelerate training for Personal Support Workers
Personal support workers (PSWs) have played a critical role in caring for some of our most vulnerable Ontarians throughout the pandemic, and our PC government continues to use every tool at its disposal to protect Ontarians and support our frontline workers.
To that end, we are investing $115 million to help train and support up to 8,200 PSWs for high-demand jobs in Ontario’s health and long-term care sectors, starting in October 2021.
“We are taking monumental steps to protect our most vulnerable and provide the highest quality of care when and where residents need it,” said Doug Ford, MPP for Etobicoke North and Premier of Ontario. “We will achieve this by recruiting and training some of our best and brightest to be PSWs. This will improve the quality of life for our seniors and begin to correct the decades of neglect in this sector.”
In collaboration with Colleges Ontario, this innovative, fully funded Accelerated PSW Training Program will be offered by all 24 colleges starting in April 2021 to help communities experiencing a shortage of personal support workers in long-term care and home and community care. In addition to funding 6,000 brand new PSWs, 2,200 students in the process of completing an existing PSW program at a publicly assisted college in Ontario will be eligible to receive a $2,000 tuition grant to help them finish their studies. In total, the funding will support the entry of up to 8,200 PSWs into the workforce by the end of 2021.
Innovative approaches like the PSW Accelerated Training Program is one of the ways our PC government is accelerating the supply of qualified workers, taking action to fix the historically underfunded and ignored long-term care sector, and supporting the implementation of our historic long-term care staffing plan, released in December 2020.
It is clear, now more than ever, that we must continue to create a modernized long-term care sector that is truly resident-centred, one that provides the highest quality of care for our most vulnerable people, where and when they need it.