What if the only thing keeping a would-be experienced and passionate healthcare worker from becoming a CNA was money? Athena Kan, CEO of Dreambound, understands that one of the largest barriers preventing people from becoming CNAs is finding funding for a training program.
During her research into health disparities at John Hopkins, Athena witnessed the difficulties that aspiring healthcare workers who were underprivileged and financially insecure had in starting their career.
Single parents who were already working paycheck to paycheck could not afford to put themself through a CNA training program.
There is also the issue of overcomplication and outdatedness present in CNA training school sign-ups. Websites are hard to reach or do not even exist. Application documents are difficult to fill out and obtain.
Many of the people coming up against these problems are truly passionate about helping others and often already have experience and understanding of what they will face.
On the other side of the equation, facilities search high and low for CNAs to hire on.
In the post pandemic world, many CNAs have turned to other careers and it is often a struggle to find qualified CNAs who will stay on for more than a few weeks.
Athena’s company Dreambound addresses both of these problems simultaneously.
Dreambound works with 150 schools and training programs in multiple states. If there’s a school that’s currently not on the platform all they have to do is sign up on the website and start getting students.
Instead of a complicated application process, prospective students have only to fill out one universal application which will be directed to any of the schools on the platform.
For facilities, Dreambound provides a system by which they can choose students to sponsor who will come and work for them afterwards.
Athena also states that many schools are looking for clinical sites for their training. By taking this position, a facility will attract a lot more graduating CNAs who will have already trained there and decide to stay on out of the closeness and convenience.
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