2023 Success Story: State of Tennessee Department of Human Services Family First Grantee Daughters of Zion Shined with 35 CNA graduates in 2023
Dozens more 2023 Family First participants were involved in Daughters of Zion’s Skills To Pay the Bills Life Skills training, but the main program almost everyone was seeking enrollment in was their famed Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program. “Money was my biggest obstacle,” was the theme for nearly all 35 Family First participants on what took them so many years to finally enter a CNA program. Then came Daughters of Zion, which advertised free Certified Nursing Assistant training for all eligible Family First participants through its own school, William & Johnson Career College. The program gained more attention as the year went on, with an astounding 45% of the program’s graduates coming in the Fall 2023 Cohort.
Program Coordinator Natalee Peart-Simpson said, “As a first year, first-time Family First grantee, we didn’t know what to expect. But one thing we always do is ask good questions and follow directions. Our Executive Director Dr. Kiner told me early on to ‘Follow directions—do whatever Krista Gray (the Director of Family Assistance and Child Support Contract Management Unit) and the Family First staff tell you to do, and we will be okay’—and we did just that. THEC ( Tennessee Department of Higher Education) has put us in a position to help a lot of people who otherwise could never enter the medical field. We have been waiting for funding to take advantage, help unleash our school’s potential, and I think what we have accomplished in Year 1 of the Family First grant has shown the power of just a small amount of funding can do for organizations like ours with big visions but in need of resources to help bring them to pass.
Family First participant and CNA graduate Kedra Jackson stated that there was no way she could have graduated had Daughters of Zion not allowed her children to attend and receive services while she was in class.
CNA graduate Tarika Walker said she was impressed by the staff of Daughters of Zion and William & Johnson because they “made it so easy. Everything was direct. The information we needed was given and it was straightforward.”
According to CNA graduate Sophia Townsend, “I received one-on-one help from my teachers and enjoyed my teacher having answers for all my questions.” This was the reason she viewed the program as an overwhelming success.
Regardless of the reason, the fact that Daughters of Zion’s William & Johnson Career College has over a 90% completion rate for the CNA program shows they know how to relate to the inner city at-risk students, which is great news for the upcoming 2024 Cohorts who are anxiously awaiting their chance to become CNA graduates and obtain the opportunity to actually start a career for the first time in their lives. Thanks to the state of Tennessee’s Family First program and the execution of Daughters of Zion to simply “follow directions.”
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