In her wildest dreams, Stark Pearson never imagined she would have made a career as a nursing assistant despite the acute shortage of nurses in Florida. Pearson says that together with her husband, they did not have funds to see her through college in Tampa Florida.
Fortunately, through the help of her best friends who contributed funds to see her take on her nursing program, she is now a certified nurse with a badge to show. Pearson is an assistant nurse who was trained under a Learn to Earn program which tackles the shortage of nurses in Florida.
CNA training center to address the shortage of nurses in Florida
According to Jaclyn Kelly, her biggest achievement at the C.N.A technical center is to be able to change other people’s lives. She says she derives satisfaction to see people’s lives transform through her Learn to Earn Program.
In 2018, Kelly and her friend Elisa built their assistant nursing training center which offers a Learn to Earn Program. They worked alongside other health workers’ employers who reduced fees for training students.
Durant says that the long term care industry is going through an acute shortage of workers. Her team in the Learn to Earn program is seeking to solve the shortage of nurses by training nurse assistants to be deployed to hospitals facing acute shortage of nurses.
Providing an opportunity to access affordable quality education
The study programs provide people from low-income families to access meaningful education in readiness for gainful employment in the health industry.
Kelly says they feel happy to touch many people’s lives through their program. She has changed the narrative for many impoverished homes by providing an opportunity to access affordable quality education.
Durant accepts that in the process, they have also made business mistakes but says that in case of a mistake, the bouncing back is all that matters. Mistakes are learning checkpoints in business and life.
Programs like Learn to Earn program, are projected to grow by 10 percent in the next decade with salaries increasing from $23,000 to $34,000. The training takes about 8 weeks where students can work while studying with salaries rising to $63,000 after qualifying to be registered assistant nurses.
