Darsheen Turner has long wanted to be a nurse, but she never had time to go to school.
For the past eight years, the wife and mother of four has worked full-time at People Inc., a provider of health and human services including group homes for people with disabilities and affordable senior living facilities.
Now, with a widespread nursing shortage challenging health care providers across the country, Turner is getting her chance. People Inc. is addressing the shortage with a unique program that allows its employees to attend nursing school at Niagara County Community College part time and work part time for full-time pay and benefits.
Turner and her employer hope both will wind up the better for it. Turner gets the chance to advance her career in a high-demand field, and People Inc. gets a direct pipeline to new workers at a time when they are extremely hard to find.
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“It’s been five or six years since we have been able to hire a licensed practical nurse, and we want to improve our ability to care for the people we support,” said People Inc. Senior Vice President Bonnie Sloma. “So, we decided to grow our own LPNs.”
Turner is among the first five People Inc. employees to take advantage of the arrangement, which Sloma said aims to become the first LPN apprenticeship program in New York. Another 15 are taking prerequisite classes to prepare to enter the program in fall 2023.
Sloma said the one-year program will help fill needed roles and give its employees a boost up the ladder to better-paying positions, a key mission for People Inc.
“We are always looking at how we can cultivate and encourage our employees, because our strategic goal is to be the employer of choice in Western New York,” Sloma said. “We run succession groups to put people through manager and leadership training, so that wherever they are in the organization, we can elevate them.”
Those in entry-level jobs like direct support professionals at a group home earn $15 an hour, but adding LPN to their title jumps that to over $20.
“That can be life-changing for some people,” Sloma said.
Sloma got the idea for the partnership at a People Inc. succession planning meeting.
“We were talking about the need for more nurses, and one of the participants said, ‘I have a friend who works here who would love to be an LPN, but she’s a single mom who works full time and she can’t afford to take classes and work at the same time.’”
Sloma, a registered nurse for 35 years, immediately thought of NCCC, where she taught nursing and served 14 years as a trustee.
“I reached out to my people there and said, ‘What do you think?’ They said, ‘Enrollment is down at community colleges across the state, so anything we can do to increase it is good.’ ”
People Inc. enlisted Equus Workforce Solutions to help its employees apply for tuition assistance and agreed to cover books and supplies while paying them for 40 hours a week to work 20.
Sloma said People Inc., which employs 4,000 people and has a $200 million budget, chalks it up to professional development training that strengthens its workforce.
People Inc. Vice President of Nursing Tanya Perry called the new nursing students “our cream of the crop.”
“We interviewed them, looked at their work ethic and the work they’ve done with the agency, and they are a great group of employees who work really hard at their jobs and their classes,” she said.
Once they earn LPN certification, the new nurses may go on to earn registered nurse certification in another year – six months sooner than the three semesters it usually takes to complete an RN. Participants must agree to continue working for People Inc. for two years after they graduate.
Sloma said she knows from teaching it that the LPN program would be too difficult to complete while working 40 hours a week.
“Five nights a week for a year is a lot, especially with all the memorizing involved in anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology,” she said. “And we knew from our conversations that in order to be successful at a very challenging program, we need to free up work time and basically pay them 20 hours a week to go to school.”
That offer is what convinced Brendyn Field, a behavior technician at a People Inc. group home, to go for his LPN.
“When this opportunity arose, it was too good to pass up,” he said.
Field, 35, has partial custody of his 4-year-old daughter and wouldn’t want to spend any less time with her.
“I don’t think I would have the ability to balance work, school and home without this,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
Tuesday Goodband, a group home manager for People Inc., said the RN she works with there inspired her decision to become a nurse.
“I was already doing paperwork, dealing with doctors, doing blood pressure and vitals, but this is more hands-on,” she said. “I love working with people and I love working alongside the nurse.”
She said the program is not easy, but the People Inc. students help each other.
“We have our group texts where we like to encourage each other,” she said. “Even though we didn’t know each other before, we kind of came in as a group. We came in with that bond of People Inc.”