What Is Population Specific Training in Washington State?
Updated: 7 days ago
Washington caregivers meet the phrase "population specific" early. It appears in the 75-hour training requirement, on course lists, and in the questions an employer asks during the first week, and almost nobody stops to explain it.
A new hire at an adult family home wants to know whether it means one more class. The owner of that home wants to know which class, and by when.
Both questions have a clear answer in the state's training rules.
Population specific training is the part of basic training that prepares a caregiver for the people they will care for, and Washington leaves room in how that part is met.
What Population Specific Training Means
Population specific training is training on topics unique to the care needs of the population that a home or provider serves. That is the state's own definition, and the important word in it is "serves."
The training follows the residents or clients. A caregiver working with people who live with dementia and a caregiver supporting adults with developmental disabilities can both meet the requirement, each with a different class.
The rule names five topics:
dementia
mental health
developmental disabilities
young adults with physical disabilities
aging and older adults.
Where It Fits in the 75 Hours
Washington's 75 hours come in two parts. The first five hours are orientation and safety training, and a worker completes them before providing any care. The remaining seventy hours are basic training. Population specific training is one component of those seventy hours, which means it is part of the 75 and counts toward them.
Which Classes Satisfy the Requirement
Washington allows the component to be met in more than one way. The first is specialty training that DSHS developed or approved. Three specialty classes exist, for dementia, mental health, and developmental disabilities, and they are not interchangeable. A dementia class does not stand in for a mental health class, because each is built for a different group of residents.
The second is a DSHS developed or approved curriculum on a population specific topic. The rule gives two examples: Traumatic Brain Injury, Surviving and Thriving, and Navigating Challenging Behaviors.
Cornerstone Healthcare Training offers dementia and mental health specialty training as Level 1 courses of eight hours each. Both are available self-paced or as a live virtual class, and the live virtual classes also run in Spanish.
Nurse Delegation Can Count Too
Workers in assisted living facilities and adult family homes have one more route. For them, nurse delegation core training and nurse delegation specialized diabetes training may be used to meet all or part of the population specific component.
A caregiver who needs nurse delegation for the job can put the same hours toward basic training. The provision names those two settings and no others. Cornerstone's nurse delegation core training runs nine hours, and the diabetes course adds three.
How Employers Choose for Their Staff
For an adult family home, assisted living facility, or enhanced services facility, the choice starts with the residents. When a home serves residents with dementia, mental health needs, or developmental disabilities, every long-term care worker there must take the specialty class that matches, including workers who are exempt from basic training.
Administrators or their designees, adult family home applicants and providers, resident managers, and entity representatives fall under the same requirement.
Timing decides whether one class does double duty. Specialty training can meet the population specific component of basic training if the worker completes it within 120 days of the date of hire. Scheduling the class inside that window lets a new hire finish it as part of the 75 hours instead of adding it later.
Experienced hires need a check as well. A caregiver who has completed the 75-hour training but holds no specialty training certificate must complete specialty training once employed by a home that serves residents with special needs. Asking for the certificate at hiring settles the question on the first day.
Start With Who Lives in the Home
The practical question for any Washington home is short: who lives here, and what do the people caring for them need to know?
Answer it before the next hire starts, because the date of hire opens the 120-day window in which a specialty class can also count toward basic training. A caregiver who begins with the right class finishes the 75 hours ready for the residents in front of them, and the home has one less requirement to chase later.
Cornerstone Healthcare Training runs dementia and mental health specialty training in English and Spanish, along with nurse delegation, so each new caregiver can be matched to a class on the first day.
Sources
WAC 388-112A-0340: defines the population specific component of the seventy-hour basic training, lists the example topics and the classes that may be used, and contains the nurse delegation provision for assisted living facilities and adult family homes.
WAC 388-112A-0400: defines specialty training, states who must take it, sets the 120-day condition, and covers workers who completed the 75-hour training without a specialty training certificate.
RCW 74.39A.074: sets the 75-hour requirement, including the five hours of orientation and safety training completed before a worker provides care.
