PCA Trainer Reaches 30 Year Milestone at Matheny

Brenda Hoagland feeds 15-year-old patient,
Aaron Turovlin.

Brenda Hoagland began working at the Matheny School 30 years ago because she wanted to learn everything she could about cerebral palsy. “My half-brother went to school at Matheny,” she recalls. “I used to come up on the weekends to pick him up and take him home for the weekend.” Her brother was able to return home for good in 1978, but soon after that, 19-year-old Hoagland began working at Matheny as a childcare worker (now called personal care assistant). “In case something happened to my parents, I wanted to know what to do,” she says. “I wanted to be knowledgeable.”

That knowledge paid off about six years ago when her brother was in a serious automobile accident, suffering a lacerated liver, fractured skull and several other injuries. The doctors at the Jersey Shore Medical Center, says Hoagland, “didn’t want me to leave because I knew everything about him. Then, he was transferred to a rehab center, and, because of everything I have learned at Matheny, I ended up running the treatment plan for him.”

Through the years, Hoagland, who has lived in Easton, PA, for 17 years, has worked in a variety of jobs at what is now called the Matheny Medical and Educational Center, a special hospital and special education school here for children and adults with medically complex developmental disabilities. She worked as a PCA, PCA department manager, PCA trainer and community residence manager. Now, she is again doing what she truly loves – training new PCAs. PCAs are caregivers who help patients with their most basic daily tasks, such as personal hygiene and eating. “My heart,” she says, “ lies in the PCA department. And I always liked working with new employees.”

Hoagland’s first grandchild is due soon, and she will probably be cutting back to four days a week. But she has no plans to retire. What keeps her at Matheny? “The kids,” she says. “I call them kids even though many of the patients are adults. I enjoy the small milestones – helping one patient move around in his walker, going to another patient’s prom with her, helping another patient gain weight. I’m into challenges.”

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