Above left and right: Physical Therapist Melissa Otto assists young patients as part of the Pierce County Birth to Three Program. Above center: Occupational Therapist Aly Engle and Physical Therapist Melissa Otto smile in front of the Pierce County Office Building.
AZ Snyder was in a tailspin. The Pierce County Public Health Director had just gotten word that the county’s contract with their therapy provider was going to become unaffordable for the county. Physical and occupational therapists are integral to the county’s Birth to Three Program, and AZ’s only option was to try to hire full-time therapists during a national workforce shortage.
“I knew I was going to be competing against private therapy practices and large healthcare systems, and I knew we couldn’t offer anywhere near what they could in terms of financial compensation,” said AZ, recalling similar positions that had gone without a single application for months. “I was really doubting my ability to be able to recruit for these therapy positions, and this work is so core to what we do in public health.”
That’s when she learned about SCVF’s Health Care Grants, which were created when Good Samaritan Society closed its St. Croix Falls facility and established an unrestricted endowed fund at SCVF. Unrestricted funds give SCVF the greatest flexibility to meet the changing needs of our region. Recognizing the Valley’s health care worker shortage, SCVF granted these flexible funds to nonprofit and public health care organizations so they could, in turn, address the continuing needs of their staff.
“These grants are a great example of our ability to respond to needs as they arise,” said Heidi Herron, SCVF’s Grants and Scholarships Manager. “We know that health care organizations serve their communities differently, so we built in enough flexibility for each grantee to define and meet their own unique needs.”
For AZ, the most urgent need was to hire qualified, committed therapists. She immediately got to work, creatively utilizing Health Care Grant funds to design positions that offered professional development stipends in the first year of employment.
“We were able to get a very strong applicant pool that I was shocked by,” said AZ. “Being able to advertise that we had quite a substantial pot of funds to do professional development, which we would not have had without this opportunity, was a really good carrot to get people to apply.”
“It was a lovely carrot,” agreed Aly Engle, the occupational therapist AZ hired. “Continuing education in the therapy realm is super expensive. A lot of the time, we end up paying for those types of things out of pocket because there just aren’t funds allocated for that. Knowing that we have those funds was hugely motivating. To be able to dive a little deeper into our own profession and different areas that we enjoy really feeds our passion.”
“For physical therapy, we need 30 hours of continuing education every two years to make sure we have met those requirements for us to keep practicing,” said Melissa Otto, the newly hired physical therapist in the Birth to Three Program. “The classes and national conferences are so expensive and it’s such a great opportunity that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
Aly and Melissa have already put their professional development funds to work, buying books, taking classes and signing up for conferences. Recently, they took a training course to help parents of babies that have experienced medical trauma bond through physical touch. Both are now certified to lead such classes in Pierce County, in addition to the work they do daily to coach and empower parents and kids in their own homes.
For AZ, who is driven by both compassion and results, Health Care Grants have provided an opportunity to invest in her staff. She sees their work as essential and their impact on families as lifelong.
With flexible, unrestricted funding, SCVF will continue to assess and respond to emerging community needs forever.
Comments