Ep:57: What You Need to Know About Launching a Caregiver Mentorship Program

Miriam Allred (00:08):

Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (00:15):

Hi, I’m Laura, Executive Director of Norwood Seniors Network. We’re a nonprofit home community based program outside in the north side of Chicago. We’re affiliated with the nursing home and I previous to this job, I’ve been here about five years. I was a president of a standalone home care company in Schaumburg, Illinois. So I’ve been doing this a very, very long time.

Miriam Allred (00:42):

Wonderful. And you know, a thing or two about mentorship programs. It is a topic that comes up on a regular basis and people come to us asking how and what and why. And, and we’re going to ask you all of those questions. You’ve implemented a caregiver mentorship program and have really refined the process. So let’s start there. Why did you initially start a mentorship program? What problems were you trying to solve?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (01:06):

That’s a lot. So I think many, many reasons I’ve started this program and obviously it’s changed. It’s evolved, we’ve tweaked it, but the main things were is that I wanted to create a community with our caregivers and make them feel that they’re supported just not through the training process, but make sure they’re part of the team. I think home care could be very isolating at times. You’re kind of on your own island with your own clients, a little isolating. So this program, I wanted them to feel connected. I wanted them to feel connected in the first day, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and continuously on when I first started this program many years ago, the turnover rate was ridiculously high, probably similar to what we’re experiencing in 2021 was really, really high. So I had to figure out a way to make, keep our caregivers with us.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (02:07):

So I created this program and wanted to make them feel more satisfied with their jobs. I want to do make sure that they’re happy and you know, happy caregivers, happy clients. And I knew that people stay with our company. It’s less turnover, less turnover for the clients. No one wants to have a bunch of caregivers on one client’s home. So I had to look at that. I just wanted them to have something, you know, to get extra training, but mostly it’s a support. It’s a way to deal with things before they happen. I want to be proactive and I just wanted the caregivers and the clients to have pure satisfaction and continuous satisfaction in our, our program.

Miriam Allred (02:51):

Absolutely. So let’s really get into the finer details of your program. I’m going to ask kind of some rapid fire questions about, about the program, but then everyone here today, you know, feel free to chime in and ask questions as well. Let’s start with the ratio. How many caregivers do you have per how many mentors and how do you set up that ratio?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (03:13):

So it depends on your hiring numbers. And I would say when I started doing this in the early two thousands, when we were hiring a lot of people, it was better, but I’ve, I think keeping really good statistics since 2017 and 2017, I had five mentees to one mentor. And now it’s sadly because I think of the way the world is right now. It’s probably one to one or one to two. I don’t give anybody more than five, but it’s usually about four. Cause I think that’s a good ratio. One to four. And if I hire 30 people who would love that, right? Or I’m hiring one person, I started the program. So I don’t wait till we get a certain number of people hired. As soon as you get hired, we implement the program because I think the first 30 days of anyone’s job, it’s probably the most critical and probably needs the program. The most, the 30, 60, 90 days,

Miriam Allred (04:22):

That was going to be my followup question. How, how long are you mentoring those caregivers?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (04:28):

The timeline is six months. The more impactful time is the first 90 days. So we have a timeline of how often we communicate, how often we meet with them and it gets less and less. And during that time I need, or our program manager meets with the mentors to see if it’s working, not everyone’s going to be a perfect match. Not everyone is going to be buying into it. No matter how many years of experience, if you have one year experience or 10 years of experience, you get the same program might be a little bit different, but you get

Miriam Allred (05:07):

Okay. That’s what I wanted to clarify. So every caregiver that gets hired with Norwood starts into the mentorship program.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (05:14):

It’s part of our pre hire process. Actually, it’s part of our interview process. And as part of our pre hire process and yes, you have to buy into it. You know, you get what you’d make of it, right? If you’re not participating or if you’re not answering the calls, if you’re not reaching out to your mentor, if you’re not following up with your mentor, then we have a discussion. And then, you know, if it’s not for you and this job’s not for you, then I want to know within 30, 60 days versus putting all this time and effort and investment in somebody who’s not really here to, to want to be here as a caregiver.

Miriam Allred (05:52):

Absolutely. Let’s talk about the actual mentors. Who are they? How long have they typically been with your agency and what does the training look like for them to become a good mentor?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (06:06):

So you have to be with our company at least two years. Okay. That’s kind of a given. I’m very lucky at my, our average caregiver in our company has been there. I think 9.4 years or something. We have a really good retention rate. Now we have people have not, but we have a really good core group. I was just telling Mariam, I have a really good core group of caregivers who have been with us a long time. So we reach out to the people who our team feels would make good mentors, just because you’re a good caregiver does not necessarily mean you’ll be a good mentor. I think that’s very important. Those are two different skill sets and you know, perfect world. They have both because you could be a really good caregiver. And when I have really good caregiver, they couldn’t teach or mentor, it’s just not in their skillset.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (07:07):

So that person has to be with us for two years without any infractions, unless it’s something silly that we think kind of overlooked. We use a lot of feedback from our home care pulse results. So we look at client satisfaction and when clients are talking about a certain caregiver, we want an, you know, we look at those things when our caregivers are getting interviewed by home care polls, we look at what they’re saying. And if they’re saying, you know, they’re interested in doing more trainings or they want to learn more, I will reach out to them and say, well, we have this program. Everyone knows about the program when they’re higher. So I would like to say, everyone comes to me and says, oh, I think I’ll be a really good mentor. Not a lot of people are saying that some come to me and I have turned down some of our caregivers because the training is we do a lot of role playing a lot of role playing, not everyone’s comfortable with role playing.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (08:07):

We do a thorough class of our manual or caregiver handbook or policies and procedures handbook we do about the rule we follow for. IDPH when we do a lot of things like that we do leadership training. It’s about, I would say total training is probably eight hours additional to your training. You’re already getting each year. So it’s a commitment. And then it’s a follow-up with your mentors. So you really have to believe in it. And I would say our most successful mentors are probably our most successful mentees when they were going through it. And they realized, you know, so obviously it helps with retention. They’re staying.

Miriam Allred (08:58):

And if they’ve been with your agency for nine years, you know, that’s incredible. Number two, you’re even just the two year mark is a milestone for these caregivers. So let’s talk about the specific duties of the mentor. You know, the check-ins the phone calls, what does that communication look like with their mentees?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (09:19):

I want to make this really clear that we schedule everything. So it’s in our scheduling software. So we schedule calls, we schedule visits, you schedule everything because that’s a good way to be accountable. And then everyone gets their schedule and they can look up their schedule on their app or whatever. And it’s, you know, scheduled, but no pay because we’re not billing any clients for this. So what we like to have happened, and this always doesn’t work is that our mentor goes to the very first case of their mentee. And so do we, because we do the introductions, but they go as well. And I was not say shadow, but kind of shadow and talk about really what’s what makes a good first client and what makes a good first day. And so that’s the biggest commitment on the flip side of that. A lot of our really good mentors are really good caregivers, so they might be working.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (10:22):

So it’s a scheduling type of thing too. But as much as we could do that, if they can’t be with them, there’s a call before this case happens. And then there’s a call after their first case. And we also make a call. Our operations manager makes the call. Sometimes I’ll make a call. So we always try to communicate with that person right after their very first client. Again, whether they have 10 years experience or one year experience, everyone’s going to get that same phone call. And then we’d do like a phone call a week. I would say the average length of the phone call probably is five to 10 minutes. It’s not that long. If it becomes more of an issue and the mentor seeing things that they need to discuss, then they call us and let us know that Susie is dealing with something.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (11:10):

The role of the mentor is not to be their supervisor, right? But they meet the mentor, needs to communicate with us. If they feel something’s happening or going on or something, they might say, oh, I, I perform so-and-so did this on Mrs. Smith. Well, that’s not in the scope of the care plan. So let’s nip that in the bud right away. I mean, because I feel that our mentors and our caregivers are more honest and we’ll share a little bit more than they’re gonna share with me. You know, they’re not going to tell me what they’re always doing. And as you know, in home care, you can’t be there 24 hours a day. No, that our caregivers are there a lot, a lot by themselves. And we like to think everyone’s following the policies and procedures and it just gives another way to be accountable of what’s actually,

Miriam Allred (11:59):

I’m glad you touched on that. Cause that’s what I wanted to bring up is the purpose of those calls. It’s it’s to talk about the care it’s to talk about what’s happening, but it’s also to check in on the caregiver, use it as an opportunity to talk about maybe their personal life or things that they’re struggling with that impacts the work that they’re providing. So anything else that you want to highlight? You know, just the purpose of those calls and things that you’re trying to get at?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (12:24):

Well, I think also this happened more so during the pen like wellness checks, wellness calls, you know checking in just how are you doing? Do you need anything? We did wellness calls to all our caregivers every week without fail. So we talked to every single caregiver during the pandemic we normally do, but they’re always like, it’s usually not a very, you know, it’s like about through schedule or it’s about, they need gloves or it’s about something, but we call them just to check on them specifically. And I would say during the pandemic, some of those calls were more I’m struggling with getting this. I’m stuck. I can’t do teaching my child. I can’t go to work, teach my child and take care of my mom at the same time, just civil unjust. I will, I will share this story. We have several caregivers who they’re dual or there grocery stores in Illinois were burned down and they had to go to Indiana to do their grocery shopping.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (13:34):

So when you hear that, that you can’t get to your grocery store where I can just walk to mine was very overwhelming. So what we did is we did a carpool and we picked up our characters and we took them to grocery shopping. And that came from some of our mentors calling and hearing that, you know, when I call somebody or everything’s great, Laura, you know, I never have a problem. I love it. I love my job, blah, blah, blah. But when you’re talking to a coworker, a cohort, it’s a little different conversation. So I feel like those conversations were so important and they still are. This is, you know, now we’re in the whole other part of the endemic, the vaccine, you know, and all those things that is going on.

Miriam Allred (14:20):

I want to talk about where that feedback goes, what the process looks like. So your mentee is saying it to the mentor. Do you have mentor managers? And that goes to, or what’s the ladder to get that feedback from the mentees up to, you know, the executives.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (14:37):

So they do notes. So we have a Google docs that they write notes. Doesn’t I always tell them if, you know,

Miriam Allred (14:51):

It’s not going to hurt anybody or hurt somebody or hurt our clients and it’s personal and I don’t need to know, and it’s confidential. You keep it. But if you’re a good feeling is telling you, you need to share with somebody editing your notes. So they send notes. So it’s a Google doc. And two of us share sometimes three of us share those notes. Okay. And then we see what’s going on. And that’s part of the expectation of the mentor is that they follow up with the notes. I don’t expect them to always follow up with some of the things that they’re writing. That’s our job or it’s no one’s job, depending on what they are putting the notes on. But part of your phone calls, and you can say, had a phone call with Laura, lasted five minutes, nothing much to report doing well.

Miriam Allred (15:37):

And that’s all it needs to, and we don’t do anything with, you know, it’s not meant to be punitive. I think that’s a very important part because it’s meant to support and help and train not to be punitive. So there might be something that I’m reading and I’m like, Ooh, you know, cause you don’t want to judge, but let’s say we all do, right. If someone’s struggling with something, I’m thinking, are they going to quit? Are they going to not show up on the shift? No, they have all this going on. So instead of being punitive and judgemental, we say, is there something we could do? Do we need to change your schedule? Do we need to help you find transportation? Why aren’t you late? What’s going on again? Those are the conversations they’re probably not having with me, but are having with their mentor. Absolutely. Looks like we may have a question from Todd here. Todd, go ahead,

Todd (16:27):

Laura, how are you?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (16:29):

Hey Todd! How are you?

Todd (16:30):

Doing good. Doing good. As this came to mind, I kind of had the thought around, you know, we’re all struggling with hiring right now. How, how has having a mentor program where it’s, you know, one to few young, one to four, one to one in your instance sometimes how has that helped when a caregiver is applied for multiple jobs, as we know, how does that help you kind of differentiate yourself versus maybe who has received other job offers and how do you use that kind of in your hiring process to build your employment brand?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (17:04):

We definitely try to use a Todd. Absolutely. And I will, we use it in our recruiting tools and our marketing tools. Does it impact now I’m going to say, I can’t tell, you know, because I think things are so crazy right now in the past. Absolutely. I think it was a deal charter. I think people are like, oh, they’re invest. Yeah. Our caregivers are my biggest investment. If I didn’t have my caregivers, I wouldn’t have a company. So I put a lot of investors there’s investment, but I would say now it’s not doing as well as I would like in my recruiting. I think it’s keeping people there a little bit longer and retention. And I think, again, even though it’s what my boss measures, I really measure the mental health capacity of it as well. So I think it’s helping with that, keeping people, but as far, you know, I’m kind of nervous to kind of look at the numbers actually in 2021. I mean I do every day I do every day I do every week. What is it helping people change? I, I don’t, I don’t know. I can’t tell you that because I think all my colleagues were all experiencing the same thing. I mean, I could probably offer a million dollars and people are like, oh, I still don’t want to work. Okay. So I don’t really know. I can’t really be specific on that.

Miriam Allred (18:28):

Awesome, great response Laura. We know, we know it’s tough and I’m glad Todd brought that up. That was kind of the next question on the doc here is about the recruitment element of mentorship programs. We’ve had a question come in from Shannon about the mentorship training.

Shannon (18:43):

I was just wondering, ss there a certain kind of program that you use for the mentorship or do you bring them in for an eight hour training? You know, like do you, or is it like piece together or…?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (18:54):

So I think most of our training is that what I have kind of developed the past 15 years, maybe 10, 15 years, I will take specific things from our training software. If I feel it’s important or I use YouTube videos I will use some Ted talks to be honest, really, whatever the subject is or what they’re struggling with or what I feel that they need. We used to read some books. I have totally taken that away because no one is, you know, I guess I’m the only, you know, dinosaur out there that enjoys a good book, but they weren’t reading it. So I’m here. I’m thinking about all these great leadership books and you know, and they weren’t reading it. So I’ve taken that out. I might, I might send them an hour, have them read certain parts of a book or something about leadership and I in the beginning, I don’t know if you were here, Shannon.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (19:50):

I said that every good caregiver makes a good mentor. You know, it’s two separate skill sets. You got to kind of marry the two. So, and we will look, I will say, we will look at this two. We will look at the person and we do have a curriculum that we ask them to follow. We, but if there is something, I think that they can benefit from a little bit more of a leadership or learning our policies and procedures better, whatever it is, we will, we will customize that to that person. But I don’t use a specific training. You know, maybe that’s a business. I should get an idea.

Miriam Allred (20:29):

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the question. Shannon. We’ve got another really good question. That’s come in here from Aaron. Why don’t you chime in and ask the question to Laura.

Aaron (20:36):

This is actually something that we were looking into earlier this year, probably based on stuff you’ve already done is probably I’m sure it is. It’s Activated Insights that actually sent us a lot of this documentation, but we were trying to figure it out where we’re in a rural Kentucky, Southeast Kentucky, 22 counties we service. And some of them are vastly far apart from each other. And it could be three hour drives, almost four hour traps, some of the counties. So trying to implement something like this, where our mentors that we would put into that role would be able to come to the orientations or be able to be there for people in these various areas. I’m not sure how that can successfully be done. So I was curious if you seen them at work in an area kind of like ours.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (21:17):

Well honestly I’m not in a rural area at all. I mean, you know, north side, Chicago, there’s millions of us here. However, with the pandemic, we have done a lot more zoom, a lot more FaceTime calls, a lot less face to face. I don’t feel as, as beneficial as face-to-face churning. I just think it’s just better, but that’s just my personal opinion. But it’s doable. I think it’s doable. I think you just have to kind of do pods, you know, of kind of divide and conquer, you know, and then make your, maybe make your S your groups small and you have more mentor groups, the bigger ones, because it’s easier to, I think, manage a smaller group. I think when you’re starting out, I think it’s much easier when I was doing this the first time I just did a little pilot program, like on my own little pilot program, I didn’t jump into a big ocean. I just took a few people that I felt that, you know, and it’s trial by error. Like, let me tell you right. It still is. It still is. I think it’s doable. I just think it has to be managed correctly.

Miriam Allred (22:26):

Great question, Aaron. Thanks for that response. Laura, another question that’s come in around pay. We didn’t talk about compensation. Are you compensating your mentors above and beyond their regular caregiver pay? And what does that compensation look?

Laura Shaw-deBruin (22:40):

So we do for our mentors only when they’re mentoring, not when they’re caring, when they’re mentoring, they get $2 more an hour, which has been beneficial. We have surveyed our caregivers to ask if they feel that’s acceptable and all of them are like, yeah, because I, it’s not that we’re not asking them to do anything. They don’t know how to do. And it kind of adds up again. But if you’re only doing a few hours a month, just a little extra money, but we want them to know that they’re recognized. We also do a different name badge one year we did different uniform shirts, but then I didn’t want to make it into like, oh, well she’s a mentor and she’s not, they’re both amazing caregivers, but, you know we, we even have been really PA we have been very fortunate and our home care pulse results for the past eight years.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (23:37):

So we always have a party to celebrate our results every year. Even this year we’re doing it. You know, we’re kind of having an open house type of party, or we’re doing something special from mentors too. So, and I am, I am very famously known for sending handwritten thank you notes all the time. And I’ll put gift cards in their celebrations or I’ll throw in a t-shirt or actually a uniform shirt and just say, thanks for mentoring. I think it’s, you know, verbal feedback and written feedback and little perks is essential and that’s not only for the mentors it’s for everybody. Right? We have to include everybody. But for the mentors that you get paid a little bit more

Miriam Allred (24:20):

Follow up question to the compensation is what does a typical, hourly commitment look like from a mentor? I know you said right now, you’re kind of on a one-to-one basis, but maybe in your prime a couple of years ago, what was the commitment? And nowadays, what does that commitment looking like from the mentors

Laura Shaw-deBruin (24:37):

Prime, I would say was 10 to 12 hours a month. And I would say it’s probably four to six to eight. Now it’s probably four because it’s one-to-one so we’re not asking them to do, you know, 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there like any good program. There’s more time in the beginning of the program. Right? You put more of your eggs in the beginning and you and your Wiener way. But in my prime, it was like 12 hours a month.

Miriam Allred (25:11):

Okay. That’s great for context. Kimberly, I know you’ve asked another question around training with the clients. Do you want to go ahead and ask Laura that question?

Kimberly (25:23):

Yeah, so we instituted a mentorship program. That’s a little bit different because we ran into that problem, but all our good caregivers are working. So how do I get them over there? So I thought I’ll do it the opposite way. So I found some clients that were open to having new caregivers come to the location, and I sold them on that. You’re getting two caregivers to help you out during that time. But you, of course won’t pay anymore. No one asks to be paid, you know, to be charged less either. So it was nice, but the biggest thing that new caregivers really want to know, they’re nervous about personal care, as well as just, you know, how do I start my first visit? But I just wondered, are they doing much training in your mentorship program, on the job? I mean, are they showing them what to do? Because that obviously is the hardest sell in what clients are the least comfortable with and then dad got involved in it. Yeah.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (26:18):

I would say not as much as probably people would think I have a RN on duty, no full time. So I’m very fortunate. So when there’s training issues, I think that’s what clients want to see is a nurse come in and train. So, and our nurse does 90% of all the introductions where they review the care plan with the client and the caregiver. Sometimes the mentors there, sometimes the mentors, not depending on if they have that time. So I kind of separate them. I will say that when we were in person, I would have some of the caregivers or the mentors come and do some of the trainings because they were much better at it than I was. So when we were doing something like transferring to the toilet or something, you know, I have a CNA who was really experienced on that. Why would I not use her? So that’s what, but I don’t the scheduling, like you said is tough because someone’s working. And right now I don’t have enough extra people just hanging out, wanting to help. So we kind of divide and conquer, but I’m very fortunate having a full-time nurse.

Kimberly (27:34):

I must’ve missed in the beginning. You were saying something about that. You schedule the times on there, you know, in your software so that they’re making those phone calls and you said something about, of course you’re not billing it, but are you paying them? Because you did say that you pay at a higher rate when they’re mentoring. So both people are getting paid

Laura Shaw-deBruin (27:55):

At both. You were getting paid, but I’m not building any clients, you know, so, but it’s in there. So we know what we have to obviously pay off. And you know, it’s a tracking tool as well, you know? Cause I look at when they’re working and when their notes are what they’re doing and if they’re missing anything, I mean, there is a checks and balance and that’s what my, and then I have another part, like our program manager she’ll check and balance, but she does payroll. So she’ll look at the notes, she’ll make sure people are making enough visits. No, we’re not some new agency that we can’t manage it within ourselves. I would love to be bigger. You know, that’s my goal. But right now it’s manageable for the team I have internally. Does that make sense?

Kimberly (28:39):

Yeah. Yeah, no. Cause you said something about calling every caregiver and we have like 150 caregivers, so I’m like, oh my

Laura Shaw-deBruin (28:45):

Caregivers.

Kimberly (28:46):

So how do you manage something like that? Like,

Laura Shaw-deBruin (28:49):

Well, he participates every single person in that office. There’s seven of us or eight of us sometimes every, so we’ll take a hundred caregivers, we’re 120 and we divide by seven and then we rotate. So we’re not getting the same caregivers all the time. I think I might get the same caregiver every six weeks or something. The same package. Now, you know, you talked to some caregivers, you talk to every day, every day and that’s okay. You can see how they’re doing, but we make it. And then we also track that in our scheduling software to, yeah. You know, talk to Kimberly, this is what she’s saying, blah, blah, blah. And we call it a wellness check. So that’s how we do it. I don’t, I don’t want one person to do it. And I, during the I had was interesting. Right. We never, I didn’t, I was not for, I didn’t work from home. I worked in the office the whole time and there were about four of us worked in the office the whole time. And we would sometimes meet when we were calling caregivers. I’m like, I don’t care where you are. You’re still calm those caregivers. And we have a timeline. We call them during this time. No one is that busy. They don’t have, you know, an hour to call TennCare.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (30:14):

You know, I think so you all can make it work in our 40 hours.

Miriam Allred (30:17):

Erin said in the chat, there’s nine of them in the office for 180 caregivers. So, so it becomes a lot. I want to kind of reiterate this question. You had talked about gathering all the feedback and then there’s a couple of you that review that feedback. There might be an opportunity to have mentor managers. So between the mentors and then your administrative staff, you know, designating, maybe a couple of mentors that have been mentoring for a while that really Excel, they could become mentor managers and oversee some of the mentorships to take some of that load off of the office staff. We were

Laura Shaw-deBruin (30:55):

We start doing that in 2019 or at the end of 2019. I think I spoke at some conference and I’m like, this is what we’re doing now. And this is what we’re doing in the fourth quarter. And then we started doing that and then 2020 hit, you know, when your priorities are a little bit different, I want lead mentors. I want that. We just don’t have the staff to really have one right now because my staff has been with me so long. Like there was, and I’m not saying anything bad about it. They’re kind of out of the mentor program. Although I will say this, that if they come to me with certain things and they feel they need somebody, I will implement a mentor, even if they’ve been here for awhile. Cause sometimes people just need to get a little bit of a PIR or a little bit of a kick or a little bit of support that I can’t give them, but that is my goal to get, because there’s too much to do.

Miriam Allred (31:50):

There’s an interesting follow-up question here from Conner about hiring full-time mentors.

Connor (31:57):

First off, thanks for all of this. It’s really interesting and really useful. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the concept of full-time mentors. I know that that’s, that’s something that I’ve heard mentioned from time to time as an idea when people are talking about mentor programs, obviously it’s kind of more financially difficult and it’s, you know, requires probably a larger staff to justify it. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. And also, do you think that there’s like a size of staff? That’s like the threshold where it would start to make sense to how full-time mentors

Laura Shaw-deBruin (32:35):

Totally believe in the pre-concept I used to work, like I said, another agency you know, and I call I options and we had about 500 caregivers. I did have full-time mentors. There was no way I could do that, but our revenue was such that it, you know, it always makes sense to invest in your character, but sometimes it’s better than others, but when you have an abundance of clients and revenue coming in, it makes a little bit more sense. And there’s no way somebody could do, like right now, we’re at a good Hubbard caregivers. I have nine in the office, so I could do it with this. Now, if I had 500 or even 200, I would probably hire a full-time or to mentor because you’re saving money in the long run. You’re saving money on turnover. You’re saving money on no clients like this program. This has been really, you know, helpful. They, they talked to me about it. They like that. We’re working with the girls, you know, I might have 90% men, but it’s all the girls, you know, you know they enjoy that. So I totally believe that. I think they should do to make it work right now. It’s not feasible to me to make it work financially.

Miriam Allred (33:55):

Yeah. Great points. I just want to reiterate this concept of investing in your caregivers. You said it Laura, it’s, there’s a time and a place, but, but making that kind of the underlying theme of this conversation around mentorship programs is investing in your employees and doing so by creating career ladders, giving them support systems through these mentors. It’s, it’s really the way to go. Especially with labor shortages. Right now, we’ve got to do everything in our power to keep the good caregivers that we have to hold on to them and to give them opportunities to grow, give them opportunities to help other caregivers. It’s it’s all worth it in the end. Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. You know, you’re setting the example by, by building this mentorship program by iterating it every few months and few years. And it’s exciting for us to learn about it and to share this information with providers. So thank you. Thank you.

Laura Shaw-deBruin (34:47):

Good job everybody. Cause it’s, it’s a tough job. We’re all doing right now. So pat yourself on our backs to still.