Interested in senior living but unsure whether you have the right experience?
At The Kensington Falls Church, training supports both people entering senior care and experienced professionals ready to keep growing. Depending on your role, learning may include paid Direct Care Training, dementia education, Positive Approach to Care, clinical training, and professional development.
Our opportunities span caregiving, memory care, nursing, dining, life enrichment, and other areas of senior living.
Our Promise is to love and care for your family as we do our own. Preparing our team members with knowledge, skills, and support is an important part of fulfilling that Promise.
Apply through our Careers page.
Starting a Senior Living Career Without a CNA, HHA, or PCA Credential
You do not need to follow one path into senior living.
Some roles require specific licenses, certifications, education, or previous experience. Others can offer an entry point for people who are newer to direct care.
One example is our Direct Care Training program for newly hired Care Partners.
Our Direct Care Training is a five-day, in-person, paid program. A PCA, HHA, or CNA credential is not required to participate in this Care Partner pathway.
The program can be especially relevant for:
- Career changers interested in healthcare
- Recent graduates exploring senior care
- Nursing students seeking direct-care experience
- People interested in becoming Care Partners
- Candidates who want hands-on preparation before beginning their role
Direct Care Training includes practical experience caring for residents and assisting with activities of daily living. Participants also receive dementia skills training and professional mentorship from nursing and neighborhood leadership.
What You Bring Matters, Too
Senior living requires practical skills, but relationships are central to the work.
Compassion, patience, reliability, communication, observation, and a willingness to learn can all help someone build a strong foundation in senior care.
If you are new to the field, training helps you develop caregiving skills while learning how thoughtful support can affect a resident’s daily experience.
Learning to Support Residents With Dementia
Memory care requires more than completing a series of tasks.
Cognitive change can affect:
- Communication
- Movement
- Behavior
- Routines
- How someone experiences an interaction
Team members need tools that help them recognize those changes and respond thoughtfully. That is why dementia education is an important part of training at The Kensington Falls Church.
Our care team receives ongoing education in dementia support, including the Positive Approach to Care (PAC).
What Is Positive Approach to Care?
Positive Approach to Care is a dementia care philosophy and training approach developed by dementia educator Teepa Snow.
PAC teaches care partners to understand brain change, recognize retained abilities, and adapt communication as needs change.
In practice, that can mean learning to:
- Slow the pace of an interaction
- Allow more processing time
- Notice verbal and nonverbal cues
- Focus on what a resident can still do
- Adapt communication when an approach is not working
- Respond to emotion with curiosity
- Protect dignity while providing needed support
The goal is not simply to complete a care task. It is to better understand the person receiving that care.
Training Across Different Stages of Memory Loss
Dementia needs can change over time. Our memory care approach reflects those changing needs through three levels of support.
- The Kensington Club provides early memory care for new and current assisted living residents.
- Connections is our early to mid-stage memory care neighborhood.
- Haven is our mid- to late-stage memory care neighborhood.
For team members, these distinct levels reinforce an important lesson: memory care should adapt to the individual.
Communication, engagement, daily assistance, and the level of support may look different from one resident to another.
Training Pathways Across Our Senior Living Team
There is no single definition of a senior living career.
Residents rely on people with different skills, credentials, interests, and professional goals. Training should reflect the work each person performs.
Care Partners, CNAs, HHAs, and PCAs
Care Partners and other direct-care professionals build close relationships with residents while helping meet daily needs.
Training may focus on:
- Activities of daily living
- Dementia support
- Communication
- Safety
- Person-centered care
Newly hired Care Partners who qualify for Direct Care Training can build hands-on skills before beginning their role. Candidates who already have CNA, HHA, or PCA preparation can continue strengthening their senior care experience through ongoing learning.
Our CNA, HHA, and PCA career guide explains how these roles differ in training and scope.
Memory Care Team Members
Memory care team members continue building on the dementia education introduced earlier in this article.
Ongoing learning can deepen skills in communication, individualized support, and responding to changing cognitive needs.
Nurses
Nurses bring clinical expertise to senior living while building ongoing relationships with residents and their families.
Training opportunities can include:
- Dementia care education
- Clinical refreshers
- Continued development based on role, credentials, and experience
Nursing can also provide room for professional growth as skills and responsibilities develop.
Life Enrichment Team Members
Life enrichment professionals help residents stay connected to interests, relationships, movement, creativity, and meaningful daily experiences.
Because abilities and cognitive needs vary, understanding the individual is especially important.
Professional development may include education on memory care programming and approaches to engaging residents with diverse interests and abilities.
Dining and Hospitality Team Members
Senior living careers extend beyond clinical and direct-care roles.
Dining professionals play an important role in residents’ daily lives. These roles combine hospitality, service, communication, teamwork, and relationship-building.
Candidates coming from restaurants, hotels, hospitality, or other service-focused industries may already have valuable transferable skills.
Continuing Your Senior Living Career Growth
Training should not stop once orientation ends.
Professional development opportunities at The Kensington Falls Church can include:
- CPR and First Aid certification
- Medication Technician training and certification
- Positive Approach to Care dementia training
- Dementia-specific communication training
- Fall prevention and safety education
- Leadership development workshops
- Specialized memory care programming education for life enrichment roles
The right next step will depend on your position, qualifications, interests, performance, and available opportunities.
For one person, growth may mean developing deeper expertise in memory care. Another team member may pursue medication-related responsibilities, nursing education, or leadership opportunities.
There is no single career ladder everyone must follow. What matters is having opportunities to continue learning and discover where your strengths can lead.
Why Build Your Career at The Kensington Falls Church?
The skills required in senior living are important. So are the values behind them.
Residents and families trust us with meaningful parts of everyday life. That responsibility calls for knowledge, compassion, respect, and consistency from every part of our team.
Our values are:
- Love for Seniors
- Respect for Each Other
- Passion for Excellence
- Spirit to Serve
Those values shape both how we care for residents and how we work together.
We recognize individual strengths and support team members as they pursue professional and personal growth.
For someone entering the field, senior living can offer a meaningful introduction to care. For an experienced professional, it can provide opportunities to deepen existing skills and explore new directions.
Start Your Next Step With Us
You may be considering senior living for the first time. You may already be a Care Partner, CNA, HHA, PCA, nurse, dining professional, or life enrichment professional.
Wherever you are starting, look for a role that fits your current qualifications and the direction you want your career to take.
Explore our open positions, review the requirements for roles that interest you, and take the next step when you are ready.