Caregiver Training Institute

It depends on the instructor you have that determines how your experience goes. For my classroom portion I had 2 different teachers, one for the first week and one for the second. For the clinical portion it was so awful because of my instructor. But I have had friends that have had great experiences with other instructors like Bonnie who is a clinical instructor. It just happened that I didn’t get the best instructors except for Gerri Cotter who I had my 2^nd week.
For my first week instructor:
Week 1 w/​Maria Lukes:
She would go off on many tangents that did not relate to nursing assisting education and wasted everyone’s time with her stories of her life. She would also give me incorrect information when I questioned her about how long my certification of completing the CNA program would last and expire, I was told by her my certification of completing the program would only last 4 months and that I would have to take the board exam within that time period. I had to call in the Oregon State Board of Nursing to have them confirm the certification would last 2 years.
She did not give the respect that we students deserved either. On the first day she was curt to us in a rude manner when we did not see and read instructions on the side board to tie up our hair and criticized us for not following those instructions and for delaying class with our check in by 10minutes. How can you be angered by delaying class when we were all lined up since check in started at 7:30am? We were all lined up even before the time required to be there and processing each student takes time and can’t be expected that all students have everything required turned in.
On the day of our midterm, she thought it was funny to play a practical joke that class started at 7:30am (instead of the scheduled 8am stated on the syllabus) that day and state that the midterm exam was taken already by the other students with each student that came in. One of the students had test anxiety and when Maria Lukes tried to joke with, pushed the student too far which resulted the student in tears because she had test anxiety. As a teacher and a licensed Registered Nurse (RN) this is not appropriate behavior at all. How she acted was unacceptable.
Week 2 with Gerrian Cotter
Gerri was an outstanding teacher, she was very informative of what we needed to know for the board exam and I felt that I was very well prepared and well educated on what we needed to know as nursing assistant students. She went over everything required and was able to answer our questions to the best of her ability. If she was unable to answer our questions about the board exam, she herself called the Oregon State Board of Nursing to clarify certain information pertaining to the state board.
Clinicals:
With Terri Pryne was very disrespectful to us and to the residents in the nursing home. I felt that she was very condescending and whatever answers we gave to her questions had to match whatever her answers were. Such as when she tested us on our meal and fluid intake.
The way she treated residents was disrespectful. She also forced residents to do skills with my classmates and I that they were not comfortable doing either. On the first day of clinicals 09÷03÷13 one of the residents I was walking with had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which causes severe anxiety in people who have it, Terri came over to see if I could get checked off for ambulation with a walker to chair and vice versa, the resident clearly stated she was not comfortable with working with Terri and her action of the tightening the gait belt more than it already was around her wasted, and kept repeating her discomfort with Terri and finally said loudly and stated she wanted to go to her room and wanted to be left alone, and Terri finally stepped back from the situation and allowed me to walk back into her room as she requested.
She also tried to force us to work with residents we were not comfortable working with to get our skills checked off, there was one male resident that would grope women in a sexual harassment manner if any female CNA were to work with them. As our clinical group consisted of all females, we did not feel comfortable at all working with him, and when we stated our discomfort she just replied to just be careful when working with him when we got our skills checked off with her. Even the employeed CNA’s suggested to not get our skills checked off with him and to not force him to work with us if he didn’t want to. Terri disregarded all these warnings and made a couple of fellow students work with him, and after working with him they spoke to myself and the other students in the clinicals about the uncomfortable experience working with that resident. She as a teacher should understand the limits and our comfort level of being in certain situations during our clinicals and should not have forced us to go beyond what we were comfortable working with, she disregarded everything we said.

I recently attended CTI beginning in February with CNA 1. The teacher Scott was fantastic. I also enjoyed the labs and clinicals. The State Board tests are held at the facility and was able to become acquainted with and practice skills in that room. Upon passing the state board test I took CNA 2 (acute). Maureen was the teacher and was excellent. Both her and Scott made the class fun and that encouraged much learning on my part. The support staff: Lori, Michelle, and Julie D were very helpful in answering any questions and pointing me in the right direction. My clinical instructors at both Foster Garden and Vibra were excellent. Thanks again CTI!

I wish there was a way to give this place fewer stars. I scheduled a class weeks ago to renew my CPR certification, and today I got a call from Caregiver Training Institute saying that they changed the time of the class to a time that I am not able to attend and that they won’t refund my money for the course, either. The course is being held tomorrow, and they were very comfortable not giving me even 24 hours of notice regarding the change in time for the class.
What they were willing to do was charge me another $ 10 to reschedule the class for a future date. Since any future date would mean that I would be registered for a course beginning more than 24 hours from now, I should be able to then cancel my new registration and receive a refund. That is their stated policy. However, apparently nothing I can do will entitle me to a refund of the money for the course at this point. I guess they can keep their one star for calling to explain to me how they screwed me over.
An earlier reviewer mentioned cars being broken into in the school’s parking lot. I’ve been to the Caregiver Training Institute, and it is indeed deep within the ghetto. It’s quite probably the worst neighborhood for hundreds of miles. While I was waiting for the bus to take me back to civilization, I was approached by someone selling crack and harassed by several homeless people. They have fortified the windows of the building with steel bars and enclosed the fire exit with razor wire. Take your business elsewhere, no sane person would willing go to this neighborhood.

I gave this one star because a negative wasn’t available. I have been in healthcare for over 12 years and moved to Oregon where I needed a nonsense CNA2 so I decided to go the cheaper route which was CTI as opposed to Portland Community College, bad idea.
Cars were broken into while we were in class and guess what, CTI didn’t cover the damage, I felt bad for those people.
They will put more people into a class than they have room for in clinicals meaning you have to wait for another student to fail the final so you can take their place. If no one fails than you have to wait for someone to fail in the next class. That’s right you aren’t automatically put into the next rotation. Once they receive your money you become another number in a bank account.
You must sit through an orientation that does not apply to you but every class that’s offered, a huge waste of time.
On a positive, the instructors are great. Although while in class you must fake using the equipment, even alcohol wipes as they are too cheap to buy more. The class is almost $ 900 and we couldn’t use more than 2 pairs of gloves in a week!
Here’s a kicker. I called to have a fax sent, just a piece of paper saying I attended, nothing official. I was told it would take days. I refused to take that and made someone send it right away but it was a huge fight to get it. Really, they were that lazy and cheap that a 30 cent fax was too much to handle.
Oh and PCC might be a bit more expensive but they also help you find a job when you are done. CTI does nothing of the sort. If I had it to all over again I would have paid the extra money and gone to a real school.