Success Story Spotlight: Mara W.

Mara W.'s healthcare career began eight years ago at a MediLodge nursing home facility in Michigan, where she started as a brand-new Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) fresh out of class.

Her first month tested her. "I thought I was gonna quit," Mara admitted. But the residents kept her going. "I enjoyed the residents, the conversations, hearing all the stories." She stayed, and she kept moving forward in her career, becoming a lead CNA, a resident voice and admissions counselor, a scheduler, and then a Payroll and Benefits Coordinator in the HR department.

Each step in her path deepened her expertise with the ins and outs of nursing facilities—and Mara set her sights on leadership and becoming a Nursing Home Administrator—something she has now achieved with the help of the H-CAP Nursing Home Workforce Stabilization program.

When her employer introduced her to the program, Mara seized the opportunity. The program's scholarship covered a six-month Nursing Home Administrator course that met on Saturdays to support full-time workers and students. The end goal was landing an Administrator role that could roughly triple a participant's income.

"If I could get through this class, if I could pass that test, I could change the trajectory of my life and my kids' lives," Mara said, "to build a more sustainable life for us."

Mara was actually the first worker to request that H-CAP offer scholarships for the administrator track, and that conversation shaped how the scholarships were offered across the state. Once the scholarship was available, Mara did not keep the opportunity to herself.

With her support, eighteen of her coworkers ultimately enrolled, and thirteen graduated in Mara's cohort before state licensing rules changed—thirteen people positioned to triple their income in the same six months.

"It's amazing to be able to help others grow the way you grow," she said. "I believed in them, so I encouraged my coworkers to do it."

Alongside the scholarship, Mara used the program's reimbursements for healthcare costs and transportation, two expenses that never let up for a mother of four.

"Those once-a-month payments were the difference between putting food on the table and paying a bill," she said. "Nothing short of heaven-sent when those payments came."

The change reaches well past her own paycheck. "It is going to put my kids on the path to bigger and better things," Mara said. "As parents lead, kids follow." She is already looking ahead to her next goal: regional director of operations.

The program's financial literacy workshop left a mark, too. "Those tools will give others future success, help budget, help build good credit," she said. "With a good job and good budgeting skills, you can achieve many goals. You don't have to live in a state of poverty."

Her advice to anyone considering the program is simple. "Do it, try it," she said. "I know it's not for everybody, but what's the worst that can happen? If you try it, you might love it, and you might one day be an administrator too."

Mara's trajectory shows what becomes possible when nursing homes invest in the workers who already know them best. Direct care is chronically undervalued and underpaid, and it carries some of the highest turnover in healthcare, conditions rooted in the long devaluation of a workforce made up predominantly of women and disproportionately of BIPOC workers. When we stand with workers and provide paid training and wraparound supports that keep them financially stable, they can stay and rise into leadership that strengthens entire facilities and the residents who depend on them.

Congratulations, Mara! We can’t wait to see what you do next.