Last month NIC was awarded its largest grant yet; $6.4 million.
The grant will fund the expansion of health care education and training programs.
The grant was handed down from the U.S. Department of Labor in October as part of $450 million in job-driven training grants going to nearly 270 community colleges across the country.
“The grant will be used to establish the framework for a center of excellence,” Lita Burns, vice president for instruction, said.
The programs planned for expansion or creation in 2015 include: Medical Assistant and Pharmacy Technician with programs to follow in 2016 in Surgery Tech, Medical Lab Tech, and Dental Hygienist.
“We will sub-award funding to partnered institutions such as Lewis-Clark, Idaho State University and Eastern Idaho Technical College to expand their health-care instructional programs in collaboration with NIC” Christy Doyle, dean of health professions and nursing at NIC.
The planned collaboration involves outlying areas such as Bonner’s Ferry and Sandpoint by providing online instruction as well as partnering with local health care providers for the use of their medical facilities to provide the lab and clinical training grounds.
“The grant is essential to create and fulfill the demand for health-care workforce training through industry collaboration and sharing resources,” NIC Grants Coordinator Sara Fladeland said.
Locally NIC will partner with Heritage Health to provide training space for clinical and lab studies related to the new programs.
The grant has a special focus that includes helping veterans with military medical training to apply their knowledge into civilian fields, such as Military Medic to Paramedic training. Also, veterans without prior medical training will be able to get into these programs as part of helping them transition to civilian jobs from military service.
“One of the first things to be done will be to hire a project director and a senior administration assistant, and then a fiscal analyst to oversee the administration of the grant,” Doyle said.
Another important factor in these new training programs is that the certification received in them will be transferrable to any state in the U.S. The implementation of this grant will allow NIC and its affiliates to be able to offer training in these health care fields without having to spend large amounts of money on furnishing on-site labs with expensive equipment. Partnering with existing health care providers for use of their facilities for the lab and clinical work NIC hopes to create the maximum amount of training for the most people across the state.
NIC was the only college awarded grant money from the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grant program in the state of Idaho.
Doyle, Fladeland and Burns all agreed that it is an exciting time for NIC to be able to offer a myriad of health-care training to those most in need, both locally and statewide.
