Increasing early access to healthcare prerequisites

Wendy Murillo, a nurse for the Center School District, is blazing a path for her students to enter healthcare careers, setting an example for other districts.

Many students in Center are from immigrant families and will be among the first generation in their family to graduate from high school. Wendy launched and teaches the Certified Nurse Assistant course at Center High School to give students a launchpad into a healthcare career. 

“I want them to be able to leave school and be able to have a decent job… to support a family,” Murillo said. “It’s great if they want to pursue higher education, but if for some reason it doesn’t work out, at least they’ll have something to fall back on.” 

She worked with Trinidad State College to set up the program, and with full support from her superintendent, she secured funding from her district for much of the equipment and supplies they needed. After learning about the Career Development Incentives Program from The Attainment Network, Wendy was also able to tap into funding from that program, which provides districts with money for students who complete in-demand industry certificate programs.

Of her current students, some have plans to attend college and ultimately become a nurse or another health care professional. Others simply want to finish high school with a credential that will help them get a good-paying job. 

Next stop for Wendy is to set up a full CTE pathway in Center to help students obtain all the prerequisites they might need to enter a postsecondary program in health care at Trinidad State College, Adams State University, or any other program in Colorado. 

Exposing learners to the opportunities available through a career in healthcare is one of her objectives. “A lot of them are interested, but they don’t really know what the medical field is about.” Some will want to enter careers in healthcare after completing the CNA course, and some may not, “but they don’t know that until they’re in the field and they get their feet wet.” 

As a front-runner in crafting nursing career pathways, the Center School District, under Wendy’s guidance, is poised to be a model for others. The Attainment Network plans to leverage Wendy’s insights to support other districts, potentially enabling students at nearby districts to participate in the CNA program she teaches and mobilizing her as an advocate for the establishment of similar pathways throughout the Valley.

Expanding work-based learning

Boys & Girls Clubs of the San Luis Valley brings to the partnership a deep expertise in working with employers to provide internships aligned with the skills they need as well as students’ interests. Olivia How, extended learning program director, has been leveraging her connections as a lifelong resident of the Valley to secure internships for learners in a wide variety of fields – dental care, architecture, physical therapy and entrepreneurship, for example.



With the support from The Attainment Network and other community partners, she aims to provide 78 paid internships in healthcare fields and coordinate wrap-around services learners may need. The wrap-around services are for things like financial support, housing assistance, and transportation – anything that is posing a barrier to learners participating in the program. 

“The sooner we can get them in to start learning about that field, the better it’s going to be,” Olivia said. “Hopefully it’s going to return to our community because we’re going to be able to keep that workforce here, to grow our own workforce. And that is so important because so many students in the Valley leave and feel like they don’t have an opportunity to make decent wages here.”

One of the partners with whom Olivia works closely is another lifelong resident of the Valley, Rachael Cheslock from Adams State University, who coordinates work-based learning in the Valley. 

Rachael works directly with teachers to find out what their students are interested in, and then she uses her deep community connections to create work-based learning or career exploration opportunities for them. 

She often has to get creative in order to accommodate challenges students face, sometimes placing students in internships right at their school if they don’t have transportation. Helping with a school’s IT or communications can be a meaningful internship, as is helping the school nurse. 

For Rachael, the partnership’s success isn’t measured by numbers alone but by the ability to open doors for students who feel they lack opportunities.

“The whole point of this was really to reach the ones who are furthest from access,” Rachael said. 

Upskilling current healthcare employees

Amidst a national labor shortage of nurses that is especially prevalent in the San Luis Valley, Brittany Sours, the Professional Development and Practice Specialist at San Luis Valley Health, has been striving for years to expand the local healthcare workforce. She knows local school districts and higher education have also been trying to build up the local healthcare workforce, but progress has been slow. 

But she sees real momentum building now with the partnership forged by The Attainment Network. 

“It’s really cool to be working with The Attainment Network because they have the time to bring all of these partners together so that we can collaborate more and not have a siloed effect,” Sours said.

Previously working more or less independently, San Luis Valley Health, as well as the schools and higher education institutions, lacked the structure and systems to work together to identify and address all barriers facing learners. With leadership, strategic direction, project management and financial resources now provided by The Attainment Network, the partners are able to work collectively to identify the barriers and collaborate on solutions to make it easier for people to enter into, or advance in, health care careers. 

“One of the best things with working with The Attainment Network is – even with all the challenges and barriers – they just maintain this really great positive attitude of, we are going to get there. It’s really been nice to have this constant direction on – where can we get the yeses, and how can we make things happen.” 

One barrier that school districts have already lifted up relates to the goal of providing early exposure to healthcare careers for high school students. San Luis Valley Health, like many other healthcare facilities, required interns and other learners at the hospital to be at least 18 years old. 

Working together, the partners elevated the need to provide high school students with opportunities to see various careers in action. With the barrier clearly identified, SLV Health took a second look at their policy, and found a way to maintain the highest levels of patient care and trust while creating specific avenues for 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in on-site clinicals. This will allow CNA program learners access to the hospital setting during their training – a huge benefit for learners.

The partnership is aiming to “upskill” 50 employees currently working in entry-level roles into nursing jobs, which pay enough to support a small family. The work entails identifying employees who are interested in acquiring the additional education they need to become a registered nurse, and then working with each individual to provide the support they need to be successful – whether it’s assistance with tuition or books, child care, housing support, or transportation. 

By investing in their employees, Brittany knows they can expand their nursing workforce with people who are committed to the community. 

“Our overall goal is to create the opportunity to upskill people within our own community who want to be here; who want to serve their community,” she said.

The partnership is already making progress toward their ambitious targets, but real success will be the sense of hope that comes with meaningful opportunities for learners to acquire the skills and education they need to succeed in good-paying jobs in healthcare. The next step is to scale the model for other pathways to good-paying jobs that are in demand by local employers.