Grants Help Licensed Practical Nurses Quickly Get into Field
A nursing shortage in the nation prompted hospitals to bring Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) back into their workforce. It’s been roughly 20 years since they have taken advantage of LPNs.
That means LPN students from Emily Griffith Technical College — who used to mainly train and work at long-term care facilities — now have broader prospects.
Thanks to scholarships like the COSI Back to Work Grant, nursing students have more funds to swiftly get them into the workforce.
Take Mike Carter for example. He got his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Northern Colorado.
It did not take long for him to find out it wasn’t the field for him. He says it’s broken. “I would rather not be a person to feed into that system.
He was young and had a daughter, who is now 12, and wanted a career where he could give back. So he decided to get a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certificate from Emily Griffith.
“I started looking around for CNA programs and found Emily Griffith was one of the best renowned CNA programs in Colorado,” he says, adding it was affordable and manageable for his lifestyle. “And so I came here and I just fell in love with Emily Griffith.”
After getting his certificate and working as a CNA for 5 years, he decided to also get his LPN from the College.
“And so my goal, hopefully with my LPN, is to either go back to the psych hospital and work as a nurse, or work in the jails and prisons as a nurse to hopefully still deal with the same population but in a more therapeutic relationship,” he says.
Mike also enjoyed learning beside a diverse population of classmates.
“And that’s been the biggest thing that I’ve benefited from with Emily Griffith is my classmates, their different stories, and their different lives and the way that they’ve come up,” he says. “I mean I have some classmates that are refugees. I have other classmates whose families live overseas, and they’re here alone, supporting themselves, going to school.”
He started the full-time, 11-month program in January and is set to graduate this month.
Mike says the classes are rigorous and he’s “ok” with that.
“You want your doctors, your nurses and the people who are caring for our health to know the most, to be the most applicable in solving those health issues.”
Working toward his LPN was financially difficult for him. Mainly because he’s taking classes full-time while helping with his daughter.
As recipient of the COSI Back to Work scholarship, he says that money helped him succeed. “It made me realize that going down to part-time was doable.”
It also helped him put food on the table for his daughter, pay for gas and parking.
“We want everybody to be able to meet their potential and apply their best to our world,” he says. “And these grants have made that possible. I know they’ve made it possible for me.”
Mike’s excited to graduate and put his skills to work.
Marie Quinn is the new Dean of Health Sciences and Administration at Emily Griffith Technical College. She says the CNA and LPN programs are the largest in her department, which also offers Medical Assisting, Pharmacy Technician, and Dental Assisting.
Marie touts hospital partnerships, and says that for students to work side-by-side with professionals is vital.
“We have labs here where they practice, but they actually get to go out and practice out in the field and really get to touch patients and interact with patients, and I think that’s great that they get to do that before they graduate and leave with their certificate,” she says.
The clinical experience helps students put their learning to use in the real world. It wouldn’t be possible without partners like HealthONE. It partnered with Emily Griffith’s LPN program this past spring.
“So HealthONE is one of our clinical partners, and we have currently nursing students and nursing assistance students going out to the different hospitals,” says Marie.
HealthONE has six hospitals across the Denver metro area. Currently Emily Griffith nursing students are getting hands-on training at three of those facilities.
Prior to the pandemic, Emily Griffith nursing students would mainly work at long-term care facilities.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for LPNs now. Every major hospital in the metro area is hiring LPNs,” she says.
And getting LPNs and CNAs into hospitals is extremely necessary because of the nursing shortage, she adds.
The U.S. nursing slump is set to intensify as baby boomers continue to age. That’s according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. A projected one million registered nurses will retire from the nursing field by 2030, it says, a stress of the pandemic also prompted many nurses to leave the industry.
But now, more opportunities are available at hospitals for LPNs, Marie says. Students get to work alongside registered nurses.
“Our students are really enjoying this new setting,” she says.
Nicole Hill at HealthONE is pleased with how the healthcare system is responding to the shortage. She’s the Manager of Academic Partnerships at HealthOne and helps place students in their clinical rotations.
HealthOne not only trains LPNs, they hire them, and Nicole couldn’t be more pleased that Emily Griffith LPNs are learning side-by-side with medical professionals.
“We’re incredibly proud to work with Emily Griffith to support our workforce development,” she says.
HealthONE strongly values diversity and inclusion — further making Emily Griffith an excellent partner, she says.
“Another important thing that Emily Griffith has is they educate diverse populations, and so that really aligns well with our own mission at HealthONE, and we have a lot of initiatives right now with diversity, equity and inclusion,” Nicole says.
Nicole also says scholarships, like the Back to Work grant, help students succeed.
“At the end of the day, it gets that individual feeding their family, feeding themselves and providing a career for themselves,” she says.
And for Mike Carter, the world is his oyster thanks to grants and his education at Emily Griffith Technical College.
One of his favorite sayings is from Plato when Plato talks about education.
“And the one thing he says is education is the one thing that people cannot take from you. They can take your wealth, they can take your health, they can take everything else, but your education and your knowledge is something you’re going to take with you the rest of your life and Emily Griffith is a great place where you can take that first step. They will help you, they will support you and they’ll make it so your dream is possible.”
For more information on Emily Griffith programs, visit www.emilygriffith.edu
To find out more about how you can help Emily Griffith students, visit www.egfoundation.org