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RCFE stands for Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. RCFEs are also known as assisted living, board and care, retirement communities, or senior living communities. They are non-medical facilities that provide care for people who are 60 years of age and older and are unable to live independently – but who don't need 24-hour nursing care. RCFEs offer room, meals, housekeeping, supervision, medication storage and distribution, and personal care assistance with basic activities like eating, dressing, bathing, and transferring.

In California, recertification is required every two (2) years. Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFE) administrators and staff must complete at least forty (40) hours of continuing education (CEUs) – of which 20 must be classroom- or live webinar-based – during each two (2)-year certification period.

Read more about the specific recertification requirements for Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly in California on the California Department of Social Services website.

ARF stands for Adult Residential Facility, which is a non-medical residential home that provides 24-hour care and supervision for adults. ARFs support individuals ages 18–59 with mental health needs or physical or developmental disabilities, as well as people 60 and older who meet certain requirements. ARFs offer a variety of services, including room and meals, housekeeping, medication storage and distribution, and personal care assistance with basic activities like hygiene, dressing, eating, bathing, and transferring. ARFs provide these services within a person-centered setting with a balance of what is important TO and FOR each individual.

In California, recertification is required every two (2) years. Adult Residential Facility (ARF) administrators and staff must complete at least forty (40) hours of continuing education (CEUs) – of which 20 must be classroom- or live webinar-based – during each two (2)-year certification period.

Read more about the specific recertification requirements for Adult Residential Facilities in California on the California Department of Social Services website.

HCBS stands for Home and Community-Based Services, which are person-centered supports that provide a variety of services in people's homes and communities where those things that are important TO and FOR each individual are balanced to support them living their best lives.

Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) were developed to offer support to individuals in community settings, as an alternative to institutional care. In 2014, new federal rules were released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), requiring homes and programs where HCBS are delivered to meet new criteria.

There are ten federal requirements outlined in the HCBS Final Rule for residential providers, five of which apply to non-residential providers (e.g., day programs).

The Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Final Rule is crucial for maintaining compliance and ensuring quality, person-centered supports. Essential CEU Institute offers courses to help you prepare for and pass HCBS Final Rule audits, including topics that cover audit criteria such as access to the community, choice of setting, and the right to be treated well.

First, when you invite staff on the Manage Staff page, you will be able to view and monitor their course completions. This is a wonderful way to view all of your team’s performance in one place and to avoid having to log on numerous times. All “Admin-type” users have access to the “Manage Staff” screen.

Second, agency owners are able to pay for a subscription in a pack; this method is less expensive than paying for each individual subscription.

First, ask the staff member to check their spam/junk mail folder on their email inbox. It’s possible that the email invitation went there.

Second, contact support so that we may provide your staff member with a prive invite link.

Our membership pricing can be located at essentialceu.institute/pricing. Please review carefully for the number of administrators and general staff per account. Administrators receive a different type of certificate than general staff. This is an important feature that distinguishes our platform from others.

If you have a small team but need more than one administrator on the account, please contact us and we will be happy to collaborate with you to further customize your subscription. We do offer a limited number of custom plans, and are happy to consider your request.

The direct support certificates are a fantastic, affordable way to benefit from the same content as CA DSS-certified Administrators, RNs, BBS licensees, and school psychologists. However, they do not contain the requisite codes required by numerous regulatory agencies. We do recommend contacting outside agencies directly to determine the exact requirements. In the event that approval codes are required, we are happy to assist any individual with upgrading their membership to include what we call “Admin level certificates”. However, please understand that this would be modified from the date of the upgrade and would not be a retroactive change.

Please feel free to contact our team for assistance in bringing that individual into your team.

Note that we will be able to assist with the team migration, but that any fees that the individual has committed to (or paid) will be upheld for the applicable term.

• Check your internet connection
• Ensure that you are using a Chrome browser
• Consider reloading that page. Sometimes this is also referred to as refreshing the page.
• Rule of thumb: If the slide doesn’t begin or advance within twenty seconds, Houston – we have a problem!
• Lastly, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for support. Our support team is here and ready to assist – either with recorded tutorials or with scheduled support to guide you through.

Yes. The quiz can be repeated until a correct response is achieved. We recommend repeating as soon as possible in order to increase the likelihood of longer term memory on the topic(s) discussed.

Our “Admin level” certificates (example below on the left) have full codes on them. For example, many of our courses count for DSS-certified ARF, RCFE and Group Home Administrators, as well as California RNs, BBS licensees, etc. All applicable codes are listed on those certificates. Please see course descriptions for full details. It is each account administrator’s responsibility to ensure that they are onboarding each user in the appropriate role.

Our “direct support level” certificates (example below on the right) have the participant name, course name, number of credit hours, and our agency name on the certificate. There are no codes, and so these types of certificates are not appropriate to submit for administrator recertification or outside renewals. Instead, direct support level certificates are typically used to show topic training for paraprofessionals or non-certified team members. These are wonderful certificates to be placed in staff files. Individuals are referred to any applicable licensing or other agencies to ensure that specific requirements are met.

Absolutely! We are eager to meet agency needs and are willing to develop custom or requested courses. Please get in touch with us to share your ideas for additional content.

Most definitely. This is a strength of our course model at Essential CEU Institute. We know that your time is precious, and often scarce. With that in mind, we have designed courses so that you can pause them and resume once you become available.

Yes, yes, yes! We love that some agencies use our courses for repetition. Some agencies prefer to take courses annually; others prefer to train initially and then revisit courses following incidents or once continued support needs are identified.

Because our courses require at least 80% correct scores to complete, team leaders have the opportunity to identify those staff who may require additional opportunities to master content.

It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that courses are taken at the frequency needed for their specialty or work environment, as well as to ensure that courses that they choose to repeat will meet their recertification needs. For example, it is quite routine for direct support staff to repeat courses frequently, but less frequently for certified or licensed professionals to repeat a course more than once in a two-year period.

Great question! No, they do not. This means that one can even take the same course online and then again in live classrooms and receive separate certificates.

This question seems most relevant to certified and licensed professionals who are turning in their certificates for recertification and/or re-licensure.

Live course participation is documented on separate certificates and not reflected in our online accounts. However, we offer a unique feature wherein users can enter and upload external courses (or our own live webinar certificates) to their Essential CEU Institute transcript.

To accomplish this, users sign into their account and click on Credits. At the top of the screen, they can see Essential Courses, Essential Trainings, and External Courses. By clicking “External Courses”, they can then Add Attendance and enter the course details. We do highly recommend uploading the course certificate so that the online transcript can be integrated across online and live/external courses.