Ep:19: How Home Care of the Rockies Built a Caregiver Training Program that Retains 90% of Caregivers

Miriam Allred (00:01):

Welcome to Vision, I’m your host, Miriam Allred with Activated Insights. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce the wonderful Sandi McCann. She’s the Founder and CEO of Home Care of the Rockies in Boulder County, Colorado. She founded the agency back in 2012 and has created a golden standard of senior care through exceptional care, quality and support, reliability, and professionalism and advanced caregiver training and compassionate service. Sandi has recently been appointed to the HCAOA national board and has incredible passion for the future of this industry. Welcome to the show, Sandi.

Sandi McCann (00:36):

Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here. Thank you.

Miriam Allred (00:40):

Yes, of course. Let’s start by talking about your background. I kind of mentioned that I want to hear a little bit about your background in corporate marketing and then also how and why you started Home Care of the Rockies.

Sandi McCann (00:51):

Okay, well, I I’ll be a little bit more specific and I, I really, while I did work on the corporate side for many, many years, my background is I spent many years with database marketing and I had you know, in, in, I was in a marketing agency world for 27 years and my job was on the strategy side.

Sandi McCann (01:15):

So I had a whole team of data analysts either from the client side and then we had our in-house data analysts and they essentially would come through and and really look at all the data and, and apply different things to data. And then we give that to the strategy team and then we would essentially create products and services and they were financial service products and services for for financial service consumers. So my background is really coming through loss of data and taking maybe disparate things that don’t really make sense and then saying, okay, well, if these four things are saying this, and then, you know, this is, this is maybe what’s happening, and this may be what we can do to, to target that, that consumer for a transaction. So Superbird out in that field and it kind of a growing, I think I had really gotten to a point where I was not feeling like I was making a difference in anyone’s life.

Sandi McCann (02:24):

I worked for very, very large brands, but I felt like I wasn’t, it wasn’t really moving. My compassion, my, my my drive for making a difference in people’s lives. And I felt like I was at a point in my career and a point in my life, I had a my daughter was you know, in college and she was going to be off on her own soon. And I felt like I could sort of take a risk and and leave the industry and venture out and start something else. I didn’t know what that was going to be. But I had a, several things that happen on the personal with a family member. My dad’s a wife of 25 years had a very serious neurological illness. And I became part of her care team while I was working. But I became part of her care team because I traveled extensively and I could travel to Arizona where they lived.

Sandi McCann (03:16):

And when I was working with her providing one-on-one direct care support, just like the care support that our caregivers do, bathing and dressing and washing her hair and helping her with meals. And she had really, really become disabled with again, a neurological illness, but it really affected her mobility. And that was tough for her because she had been, you know, very, very successful corporate executive in her career. And it was very difficult for her to accept that she needed help, but she and I connected in a way that we’d never connected before. And that informed me of, I don’t know what this is, but this feels better than anything I’ve ever done in a career. And so I really set about looking for a career where I could work with older adults, and that was, gosh. I think, you know, maybe in the next really year and a half, I started Home Care of the Rockies.

Miriam Allred (04:22):

Oh, I love hearing those stories. It’s just so heartfelt and genuine, and your background in data and strategy, but also make sense with your experience with your mother-in-law, you know, it’s just, so it’s such a great background to lead you to starting home care of the rocking. So I just love hearing that let’s segue here a little bit. Some of our listeners may be familiar with your home care 100, some may not, but tell me about why at home care of the Rockies you’ve built this customized training. Yeah. So let’s, yeah, let’s talk about that.

Sandi McCann (04:56):

Just to kind of a circle or full circle on, on the data marketer. I honestly I was really glad that I had the marketing experience and I had a lot of branding experience. So that was really all well and good for getting our logo and our website and marketing and brochures, and, you know, having a really beautiful, consistent look right from the start. We had a lot of people who thought we were a franchise right away, because I had all that experience where the data marketing really came into play. Honestly, I didn’t even think it just, this is how I naturally think about things, but really where it came into play is that I recognized early on that when wildlife, you know, founded Home Care of the Rockies, that it was really eager to grow. And I was, I really found, okay.

Sandi McCann (05:50):

Families were really wanting that care that we provided, but our challenge was that there just weren’t enough and there weren’t enough national caregivers to deliver what we call that gold standard of care. And we I know we’re going to talk a little bit about local and why recruiting is locally, but we, everybody says, well, you know, there are areas unique. We find ourselves in Boulder County with a very unique demographic. We have a large geographic area and a small, relatively small by, you know, large city, San Francisco and New York and Florida population. We’re not nearly in those larger populations. So we needed to do we need to do something to address the caregiver shortage and what we recognize and what I had been coming through all the data. And again, because I’m a data junkie, I was looking at all these various things, not only about the number of all their adults growing six times faster than, than the, than the population itself, but the sheer shortage of people who are already doing the work of a caregiver.

Sandi McCann (07:02):

And they just knew that there was just no way we could get every caregiver out there that, you know, could possibly work. It still wouldn’t be enough to meet the growing need. And there were several factors and reasons for that, which I had been studying, but I also said, okay, we have to actually get people who don’t do this job to become interested in doing this job. And that’s really where I started looking at, okay, well, why is it that people don’t want to do this job? And so, you know, historically it’s a low paying, you know, a low paying job. And there are lots of, of I think there’s this historical dismissal of home care as this low skilled, it’s mostly a woman labor force and you know, this related marginalization of the home care workforce. And we really need to, to do something very fundamentally different with that if we were going to grow the workforce.

Sandi McCann (08:03):

So we looked at wages which, you know I had, again, come from corporate marketing. I was not used to the wages that our workforce earned. So that was a big shocker for me. And it just never really made sense. And so we were also, I was very, very involved in reading about the minimum wage increases. Colorado is one of the States that is going to soon we’ll be going to a $15 an hour minimum wage, but the minimum wage is increased every year, since then, since I have been here. And the reality of it is that in our area it’s hard to make a living on nine 10, you know, whatever the, the, we just that when we first started home care of the Rockies, so we really looked at at what, what can we do? I always been a firm in training, but we looked at what can we do that will elevate the workforce that will allow them to earn increased wages.

Sandi McCann (09:03):

So they need to be able to be incented, to come to training and find a reason to come to training and then standardize the training so that, you know, you’ve got caregivers who say, I have 15 years of experience, you know, with this. And then we get them in and realize that those 15 years really were teaching someone the right way to do a transfer or database someone. So we really needed a consistent set of training curriculum where carriers could come together with each other and learn from one set of curriculum. And then also earn at the same, really at the same rates. So we created the training program as a learn and earn model. We had a training subscription with a very large training provider. And it’s not that the training was necessarily inadequate. It’s just that we couldn’t get a lot of attendance to, for caregivers to do the training.

Sandi McCann (10:09):

We would hold in services. They are, that was always hard to get people to come to in services. And the reality of the work and the job is that care was getting even before my very eyes. And the first couple of years of, I mean, the business care was getting more complex. So we said, all right, I’m a big whiteboard person. I’m a big idea person. And I brought all my team together and we were in our conference room and I said, okay, I’ve got this idea. And it’s really based on these three things. So learning. So by providing a comprehensive professional training program that will prepare caregivers to meet the myriad needs of older adults. So we’ve got we a learning component and that would be the training. And then they must earn. So we tied earning and learning together. We recognize that professionally trained caregivers must receive fair compensation to do this work, but pay skills were all over the place.

Sandi McCann (11:19):

Again, people have coming in saying have this experience and someone’s starting out, you know, and that just didn’t make sense. So we, we just create a very transparent way and training and and wages became T you know, really one together. And then the third component is okay, if we can create this comprehensive and professional training program and comprehend and provide income increases as we go, then we can work towards upholding the integrity and professional standards of the caregiving tradition, recognizing that caregivers are a valued member of our community, and they will then tell their friends, Hey, this is a good job and we’ll grow, we’ll grow the workforce. So that’s really what the premise of the training program. And then we said, okay, well, we’ll just build a training program and get it going. And that was I’m an optimist, but I’m also a marketer.

Sandi McCann (12:27):

And so I bit off like I don’t know. It was like, it’s like I try to eat an elephant all in one day. And we this was back in 2016, mid-year 2016. And I said, okay, let’s launch January one. And I spent the entire new year’s Eve weekend 2016, trying to get ready for the first training. Cause we’d promised to all of our caregivers that we were going to have this. And it’s been my life’s work. It is by far the greatest thing we’ve ever done at Home Care of the Rockies. And we are known for the home care 100 in our industry.

Miriam Allred (13:10):

So I’m just kind of mapping out the timeline in my head. You started in 2012, then you launched this program in 2016 and now we’re in 2020. So you experienced about four years with a, like you said, a national training provider, but now you’ve experienced for years with this home care 100. Talk a little bit about the results that you’ve seen or how the company’s grown because of this shift to this customized training plan.

Sandi McCann (13:35):

Yeah, really, really great question. So the, yeah, so it’s really a while we started in 2016, the training program, it took us about six months to build so 17, 18, 19 w we’re about ready to finish our S our fourth consecutive year of the home care 100. And and we’ve made lots of changes, but what we have seen over the years, and I would say certainly after the first full year that caregivers, everybody says they have the best caregivers. So, you know, I, and I used to say that, and, and we always had really, really good caregivers, but I used to say, we would like, we we’d kill ourselves, trying to try to deliver that what the training program has done is because it’s a hundred hours of not only its classroom training and it’s a lab training and it, we don’t just hand out, credits it there.

Sandi McCann (14:42):

The, the classes are taught by expert instructors in their field. So, and we teach a variety of different classes, but we bring the caregiver in at a level where not only are they, are they attending sort of a lecture and then a skills demonstration. They’re also sharing stories with each other. And they’re really able to when they come together, they’re really able to, I think, empower themselves and empower other people. So what we have found is number one, it’s a reduced attrition caregivers who embrace the training program and complete the, the first core classes of the training. So w we, we still have an attrition problem in that first 30 days. I don’t know, as if that’s our goal is to, is to reduce the 30 day attrition. What we’re really interested in is because we want someone who’s as engaged in learning as we are.

Sandi McCann (15:43):

That’s one of our values, but we’ve been able to reduce the attrition from that first 90 days. So when someone actually embraces, Oh, I get how to earn money here. I get how to learn good caregiving skills. This is really important to me. And we want people who value that we’ve been able to reduce attrition. And then they continue on through the program. So we sort of weed out people that, again, probably wouldn’t be a good value to our clients, but they’re people who want to do the training. And then we’ve improved retention and employee engagement, we retain and this is prior to COVID. So I’m giving you, you know, we haven’t finished with our numbers this year, but we retain 90, 90% of the caregivers who complete the training, stay with Home Care of the Rockies, which is pretty phenomenal.

Sandi McCann (16:44):

Yeah. We have a sustainable skilled workforce. Yes. You cannot come to home care or the Rockies and not take the training. And we are about training because a well-trained caregiver, when you know, what the training has been, not the person came with 15 years or five years or two years, but you know what the training is then, and I’m not trying to clones. We S we call it roots and wings that we provide you with a good foundation. And then you take your personality and you become you delivering, you know, the wonderful training that you know, that you’ve received. So we’ve got a great skilled workforce. We’re improving wages, standards, and professional standards for the caregiving tradition. So caregivers receive rate raises with credit hours completed and are compensated and supported as skilled professionals. When they graduate, we have graduation ceremony with cake balloons, they get certificates.

Sandi McCann (17:53):

We are a registered apprentice with the us department of labor, and they get a certificate of completion from the U S department of labor, if they’re a full-time caregiver, and they’re very proud of themselves, they get a shirt that has the homecare 100 emblem on top, you know in addition to their home care of the Rockies caregiver shirt, and they are very proud of themselves. Oh yeah. So we’re also we know that our workforce is a higher, skilled workforce than most companies because we have over 50% of my, of my workforce are graduates. We think it’s also done a lot to stabilize the workforce because caregivers can make more money. It reduces their need to take additional jobs as a lot of people do. And w the hope is while we’re still working on it the goal is that we really are trying to, to continue to raise wages.

Sandi McCann (19:01):

And we can only do that if we can reduce overhead costs, because all agency owners know, you know, with their, you know, when they’re, I mean, that’s a big concern. How can we be profitable at this? We spend a lot of money on training and wages, probably more than most home care agencies, but what’s more important to me. And yes, profitability is important, and I am all, now that we’re four years into this, my goal is, is because we had the program built. We know it works, and I would never, I could never drop the program and because of what it means to caregivers and what it means to the, it means to our clients, we don’t actually, I don’t have a marketing problem. You know, our, our goal just like everybody else is recruiting. So our goal is to really, how can we lower our overhead if caregivers, when they graduate, can take on more responsibility of the things that, you know, we do a lot in the office managing call and scheduling and you know, et cetera, et cetera, if we can lower some of those things, because we have more responsible caregivers and we do then ultimately caregivers can can benefit from those wage increases as we lower our overhead.

Miriam Allred (20:20):

Before we kind of talk about the local shift and caregiver demographic that you’ve experienced on the recruitment front, you’ve kind of touched on a number of elements to kind of the whole program as a whole, but maybe just at a really high level. Can you talk about what the program looks like? You know, what are some of the milestones you talked about, those pay increases. Can you just give kind of a snapshot of the whole program? You know, in just a couple minutes.

Sandi McCann (20:48):

Yes so the Home Care 100 is 100 hours of training. 60 of the credit, yeah. Hours are live classroom and 40 of the credit hours are what we call the caregiver lab. Every single class has an accompanying lab. So they come in and they start with a class called caregiver basics, and caregiver basics would probably look like someone is someone’s orientation. It’s not a video. It’s not canned. It’s not, you know, it’s really tailored. It’s got, it’s a set of curriculum, but it’s really goes over again. This is the part that I call routes. So what’s the home care of the Rockies culture? What is our vision? What are our values? What are the professional standards? What does, what does caring for older adult mean? The body systems and emergency preparedness, OSHA guidelines for health care training. So there are four separate units. They come in for part A, for hours and part B for four hours, two weeks apart, and then they get a lab and they complete that lab.

Sandi McCann (21:49):

And then now they have 12 credits. They continue on through that training. And we, we start new cohorts every single month. So every month we’re offering that caregiver basics class. The next month, they’re going to take something either called advanced caregiving or skills for the professional caregiver. Those are what we call a centrals of caregiving. This would look very similar to someone’s CNA program minus all the clinicals. So this is a much deeper dive and anatomy and the body systems as as aging takes over into the body diseases, chronic conditions or Alzheimer’s and dementia, neurological illnesses, Parkinson’s stroke, all of heart attack cancer. And we then have unit in infection prevention with a special emphasis right now on COVID. Then there’s a unit on nutrition and hydration and how to prepare meals for older adults, and then skilled therapies. How to help someone with assistive devices, mechanical lifts, you know, it’s all the transfers.

Sandi McCann (22:57):

It’s, it’s really helping the body move and then how to work with someone who is coming out of rehab. So when they’re still on skilled services and and then activities of daily living support, fall prevention, mobility support, and really some fundamentals of supporting someone who needs you know, significant care. And then those two classes are taught interchangeably. They come every other month. So in the first two months, caregiver could actually be almost at 44 credits. It’s an honor job training program. And while we cover that cost of the training for the caregiver, and we pay them to come to training and we register them, we try to make it possible. We recognize that, that, you know, they’re really in charge of their own when they see course complete. So we have some caregivers who complete the course and in six months, and some who’ve completed the course in three years.

Sandi McCann (23:56):

Okay. And then they’re we have a dementia series. So the first part that I talked about was really the essentials of caregiving for the professional caregiver. And then we have dementia basics and communication and advanced dementia care. And these things really cover, like understanding Alzheimer’s or dementia, how to communicate with someone behaviors care approaches, quality of life, for someone who has an Alzheimer’s, how to create powerful teams and, and care support. And then it enhancing the quality of life for someone how to handle activities of daily living. Bathing is different for someone who doesn’t have a cognitive impairment versus someone who’s struggling with a later stage dementia. And and then they, they, those are offered again throughout the course of the year. We have three additional classes, one called end of life, which is end of life care and grief and loss support.

Sandi McCann (24:54):

And then we have another class called caregiver wellness, which is self care and wellness for the professional caregiver and with specific tools and techniques on how to integrate self care for someone who probably doesn’t, isn’t always top of mind, the very last class before they graduate. So they’ve taken all their classes. And then we, we course, we allow course completion at two times during the year. And so in November, and in June, we have a class called caregiver mentor, and this is where they’ve taken all of their courses and they really get a look at how does the entire agency run. So beyond what does it look like for me as an individual caregiver? What does the whole agency do? And how does the inner workings, how does a client come on board? So we go over all departments. We show them what the schedule looks like beyond their own individual schedule.

Sandi McCann (25:47):

And then we really talk about mentoring others. So it’s an opportunity for them to really look at beyond themselves, what would it be to mentor another caregiver? And what would it be to take on additional responsibilities if they want to continue their career with home care of the Rockies? So those are the courses overall, there’s three, they there’s there to earn credits. They have to do three specific things. They have to attend the classroom training. So number one, they have to attend the classroom training. They have to attend both sessions and be at the live training with an instructor. And number two, because there’s a lab for each one of them, what we need to know, they get a lab it’s still workbook and we it’s open book and we need to know is, did what we teach. Did you, did it resonate with you and were you were, you know, connecting with the instructor and were you connecting with the teacher?

Sandi McCann (26:47):

So we need to see that reflected back. Cause it’s one thing to sit in class. It’s another thing to make sure that the things that they learn in class, they’re going to be able to apply in the field. And then we actually have a Proctor who reviews those lab books and and then actually works with them on a shift to demonstrate that they actually have the skills at competency level for them to for those credits to turn on. So once those three things are complete, then they get credits for that class. And then each course just builds on those credits when they receive when they reach thresholds of 25, 50, 75 and a hundred, they get their pay increases and there are significant they’re, you know, they’re, they’re significant pay increases so that they can be earning. And again, I, I wouldn’t matter to have a wage because they’re all over different all over the country. But here in Boulder County, our wages tend to be higher, but they’re, their wages increased significantly from when they start to when they course complete. And that’s very motivating for them. We do not have a problem getting caregivers to come to training.

Miriam Allred (28:02):

I love that idea in your mentorship program. I think it looks a little different than maybe other mentorship programs that an agency would be implementing in that you don’t just show them, you know, maybe the role of a scheduler, but maybe the roles of your other admin staff and even you as executives, you know, kind of showing them at a high level what the entire agency looks like. I think that’s really insightful for the caregiver and also motivating and could potentially be part of a future career ladder. So I think that is a really neat piece. And I appreciate you overviewing the entire program. I know that’s a lot, but I think it’s informative for our listeners. So, let’s talk about this shift in demographic. I know like you’ve mentioned your area is very unique in there’s I know one university, but multiple universities. And so a lot of these senior clients that you have are retired, professors that being said, you know, there’s a lot of students in your area. So talk to me a little bit about what your caregiver demographic looked like before COVID and how that’s kind of shifted and how you’re recruiting a lot of Gen Z. You know, what does that look like for you guys?

Sandi McCann (29:10):

Yeah, really such an insightful, that’s a real eye-opener for us, because a starkly we have tended to have you know, a little sway probably to an older workforce as maybe compared to the national average. And so we have a lot of caregivers who are early young retirees themselves and and want to contribute. And, you know, they make really wonderful caregivers. We historically probably were on the very I, you know, the PR the percentage was maybe 5% of 20 to 29 year olds were in our workforce. Prior to COVID 14% of my workforce was over 70. And while that may be sounds like, wow, that’s an older demographic. I don’t think of them that way because, you know, husbands take care of wives, wives take care of husbands. I mean, we have 70 year old daughters who were taking care of 98 year old mother.

Sandi McCann (30:22):

So they are the caregivers and there, there are, you know, they’re wonderful caregivers for us. So we we saw that shift. So we’re on now about nine and a half percent of our workforce is 70 or older versus what was like 54 over 14%. We still have over 50% of our workforce is between 50 and, you know in over 70, but the because we’ve retained them. So, you know, we’ve got I’m just looking at, you know, 40, almost 40% of our caregiver workforce has been with us for more than three years. And so while we have people that are staying, what we’re attracting now is the younger workforce. So the 20 to 29 year old workforce, again, that used to be under 5% for us. And it’s now almost 13% as what we currently have our workforce.

Sandi McCann (31:29):

So we recognized pretty early on that we lost two very significant demographics of incoming caregivers wanting to do the work number one, the over 65 group. And number two, the moms the moms with school age children. So w and there’s really nothing we can do until COVID is resolved until we get the all clear with COVID. There’s not much we can do. So we know this workforce is out there of the younger, the Gen Z, the 18 to 24. We know it’s out there. Honestly I probably was pretty frustrated myself with trying to recruit to this workforce. So I was, again, just being really transparent. I was like, well, if I’ve got people who, you know, I’m gonna focus on the ones that, you know, do come to an interview and complete the training. And, and so, but because, you know, we just don’t have those incoming workforce, so we’ve really got to address.

Sandi McCann (32:33):

So we actually pivoted quite a bit and changed several things. In our recruiting process, we changed the the the content of the job description. We changed some, several things on our website, our careers pages, we made the application, you know, quicker and easier. We have a mobile part. We, we are doing a lot of automations with texting. We use a tool called active campaign. It’s not a job hiring platform. I looked at all of them, but we really needed something where we could have automations right away, depending on what bucket they were in and there, or cycle they were in, in their, in completing the application. And so he looked at all of those things and we keep honing and honing to, to, to make changes, to appeal to the younger demographic. You know, this younger demographic who really are interested and and work, but they’re, they’re non not necessarily trusting.

Sandi McCann (33:38):

They recognize they may not have the training. And so, and they are maybe not very confident either. We also recognize in our, we had to change our orientation so that we used to start our orientation with kind of like, well, here’s all the rules and regulations of Home Care or the Rockies. And here’s how to be a Home Care of the Rockies employee. And we altered it to like completely the other way we say, here’s what we do and how we do it. But what the job is about how we’re keeping you safe. So we’ve got this whole, you know coronavirus concerns right up at the top. And then we go right into hourly pay and wage increases. So in the first 15 minutes of the orientation, we’re addressing how they can make money, how they can make extra money, what the pay programs are like, what the benefits are, and then they’re interested.

Sandi McCann (34:29):

And then we go into the training program, but we used to start with, look at us, look how much training we have. And it was kind of like a really overwhelming them. So we, we, we modified it a bit with our older demographic. It was, we had to lead with our training because that was clearly the differentiator. And is that it is our differentiator. We, there’s no place, you can go in Boulder County that has this level of training. And so that was, that was really important to some of our older demographic. We, yes, we are in a college town and we’re in a, in a demographic that very much prides themselves on education, both our clients and especially our, our older workforce.

Miriam Allred (35:16):

It’s so interesting to hear, you know, your mentality and how you’ve pivoted and what it’s resulted in. I think this is something that a lot of markets have had to address, and I think it’s great that you’ve shared, you know, kind of your transparent thoughts on, you know, initially it was hard and initially it was kind of frustrating, but addressing the demographic differences and accepting them and pivoting and moving forward is so important and has been so important through this pandemic and that we’ve had to adjust time and time again, but really just accepting the change and being flexible, moving on that is the key.

Sandi McCann (35:52):

Already flowing. I say, the river’s already flowing. You know, it’s like, I can’t do anything to change, you know, the direction. And then one other just important thing that we did is that we said, okay, if we, you know, as we started to say, we’ve got to change the way we’re attracting this younger demographic. So we interviewed, we did interviews with all of our gen Z workforce and across the board. They were really saying very similar things. And so they gave us for free and they gave us a lot of rich information. And they’re, you know, they’re happy to talk.

Miriam Allred (36:32):

In my transparency I obviously fit into that gen Z category and we’re just wired differently. You know, it’s just, when we grew up in a different age, you know, technology is at our fingertips all the time and, and we’re just different. And I think, like you’ve said, being able to interview them and talk to them, we are very transparent and communicative and love to kind of talk about ourselves in, in a way that can be beneficial to our employers, hearing it directly from our mouth. I think that is so important here. So I’ve kind of answered all of my questions with this whole demographic shift, which I love. But just one last thing, you are a new member on the HCAOA Board, which is really exciting. I’d just love to hear, you know, what impact you’re looking to make or what changes you’re going to push for. You’ve got such unique experience and have accomplished so much in your career with Home Care of the Rockies. And I’d love to hear on a personal and professional level, what you’d love to push for as an industry?

Sandi McCann (37:31):

First of all, I want to say it’s like one of the honors of my lifetime to have been elected to the Home Care Association of America Board. I mean, I was just yeah, super excited and I am honored and to be among the amount of experience and of like literally home care superheroes, it’s really an honor to, to be with them where I felt like I mean, one, I love this industry. This is by far the best career I’ve ever had. And I have, have, I have to take breaks, but I’m not, I, I there’s things that tire me out, but I have, will have unending energy to to really change the job for the, the workforce. There is no shortage of older adults. We already know what the, we already know what the, the numbers look like. The big challenge is the workforce and that getting a workforce to trained and where they feel good about doing this work.

Sandi McCann (38:39):

And that to me is where I feel like I can while listening a bit in, which is kind of hard for me because I’m really passionate. And when I’m passionate about something, I go on and on, as you can probably tell, but I I’ve spent, I want to spend time really listening, cause I know what’s going to work here in Boulder County. I know it does work, but I also want to listen, you know, to the, to the national conversation and then figure out how we can collaborate together and, and maybe share some of the things that have worked for us to really push for. Um, like for example, I’ll use our, the apprenticeship program. So we, we got that designation early on and it’s, it’s an effort to keep it. And we strive every day. We’ve also been able to get state grant funding for the training support. A lot of providers shy away from expensive training because it’s, it’s a lot to run and it’s expensive. And the, and it, you know, it cuts into your profit. So for me, I would much rather say these are, this is what caregivers need. How can we work with government sectors? And I’m not talking necessarily Medicaid, but how can we work with government sectors, at least in the state of Colorado at a very high interest in getting Colorado’s workforce earning.

Miriam Allred (40:09):

Absolutely who better to make the impact and to push this work forward. I, you know, from what I’ve heard from what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced firsthand conversing with you, I think you are so well deserving of that seat and with your passion, you know, so many great things can happen and it’ll be so exciting to see it roll out over the next couple of months and years. So that’s all that I have Sandi. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the show today. I really know your passion radiates through the microphones today, and I really appreciate you taking the time.

Sandi McCann (40:39):

All right. Well, it’s been an honor and thanks so much, Miriam.

Miriam Allred (40:44):

Thanks for listening to this episode of Vision | The Care Leaders’ Podcast. As always, it’s been my pleasure to converse with another thought leader in the industry. If you like, what you heard and are looking for more relevant home care content, check out our free resource library at homecarepulse.com. Thanks agaig and we’ll see you next time.