Our approach
Move the training, not the student.
Rural Colorado's caregiver shortage is not really a shortage of willing people. It is a shortage of access: to training, to certification, and to the support that carries someone from a first class through to a credential.
Every program we run starts from the same belief. People in these communities already want this work. Take away the distance and give them someone to lean on, and they finish. We expect that to hold true for programs we have not built yet.
Current programs
Full Circle Care Academy
State-approved CNA training that comes to the community, instead of asking the community to come to it.
Mobile by design.
In much of rural Colorado, the nearest nurse aide program is a long drive on a good day and impossible in winter. For a working parent without a reliable car, it may as well not exist.
The Academy takes the drive out of it. A mobile classroom and skills lab travels to the community and delivers the full state-approved curriculum right there: classroom instruction, hands-on skills, and clinical preparation. A student can earn a credential without ever leaving the town they plan to serve.
Already running
This part is already real. The Academy holds its state approval, the mobile skills lab has been out on the road, and students are enrolled.
students enrolled to date.
mobile lab deployments across three regions.
hours of state-approved training per student.
Year 1 regions
- Colorado Springs: El Paso County, the largest concentration of demand in our service area
- Pueblo: a regional care hub serving a wide rural catchment
- San Luis Valley: five counties federally designated as Medically Underserved Areas
The program
What the training includes.
Training
- 75 hours in total: 43 online and self-paced, 16 in the mobile skills lab, and 16 in community-based clinical
- Delivered across a four-week structure and cohort calendar
- Classes of two to five students, at a 5:1 student-to-instructor ratio
- Curriculum referencing Hartman's 6th Edition as a framework
- Approved by the Colorado State Board of Nursing within the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA)
We stay with you through certification
- Exam preparation and scheduling through Credentia, Colorado's state testing vendor
- Nurse aide registry application guidance
- Case management and wraparound support for students juggling training with a job or caregiving at home, which is usually what decides whether someone finishes
- Through employer and partner sponsorship, no out-of-pocket cost to the student
Who enrolls
Our students come from the communities they will serve.
They are already here, already caring for people, and mostly waiting for a way in.
- High school and CTE students
- Career changers
- Unemployed and underemployed workers
- Family caregivers seeking certification
- Rural residents with no program within driving distance
- Workers on paid family-caregiver pathways
As we grow, other programs serving the same workforce need will be added here.