Staffing and Teaching the Heart of Healthcare: Meet Sedricka Epperson
By Lacrystele Brown
FWIS Contributing Writer
It was early 2020 and Covid 19 was hitting the nation hard. Many families lost loved ones and jobs. Cities shut down and we had no idea what was coming next. During this initial outbreak Sedricka was in New York, New York working as a travel nurse saving lives and putting herself at risk as the hospitals there were seeing cases for Covid 19 skyrocket. Epperson, who is a Fort Wayne native had been a nurse for 7 years at this point and she loved the work she was doing to help her patients. Covid 19 would not change this at all. It would spark a dream, career, and business that Epperson hadn’t even considered.
Epperson started her nursing career in home healthcare working 16 hour shifts every weekend for 1.5 years while in school to become an LPN. Once she became an LPN, she started to work in long term care nursing homes, where she continued to work every weekend while going back to school for her RN. She became a labor and delivery nurse and traveling nurse where she worked in many places such as California, Texas, and New York. Epperson is now in school for her Family Nurse Practitioner Degree and expected to graduate in the Spring 2024.
Being in New York at the start of Covid, Epperson and her coworkers were working 12-to-14-hour shifts for 12 to 21 days at a time, trying their best to get people back to good health and keep them alive. As you can imagine this caused a burn out for Epperson and many others in the field. This would lead to Epperson coming home and taking 2 months off to recharge.
During this time Epperson had the logic that if she could put this much time and effort into someone else’s dream and business then she could put in the same time and effort or more for herself. Epperson jumped into action, got herself a mentor, and stayed focused. By the end of her 2-month break, she would emerge her own boss and the owner of Essential Healthcare Staffing, LLC.
Essential Healthcare Staffing, LLC was launched in June of 2020 but at the time Epperson didn’t really take it seriously, she was scared, she had no idea what she was doing, and as a result she continued to pick up traveling nurse gigs out of state. Eventually, Epperson would get her first contract and begin staffing those in need of healthcare employment. This led to Epperson opening a CNA school, Essential Healthcare Academy, LLC. This was the next logical step for her business. She was providing nursing homes with CNA’s and Nurses with her staffing agency, so why not be the one training the CNA’s she’s sending out to her contracted partners?
During this time Covid 19 was still taking us by storm and there was a shortage in staff. This was Epperson’s way of getting more people trained and into the nursing homes to help the residents and full-time staff. Essential Healthcare Academy, LLC launched on March 1st 2021, a date with significant meaning to Epperson as it is her deceased grandmother’s birthdate, and it has been thriving ever since.
Epperson enjoyed the opportunity as a clinical instructor at Saint Francis university to teach nursing students. Epperson loves teaching and even now with the school and staffing agency doing well she continues to dominate the classroom as an instructor and her students love, respect, and appreciate her. Teaching is something Epperson never wants to give up even as the school and agency continues to grow.
Essential Healthcare Academy, LLC provides CNA, QMA, CPR and Insulin certification classes. Epperson is working on getting a phlebotomy course and IV certification added to the school class roster as well. The CNA program is a 5-week program, the classes are conducted in the evening Monday – Friday from 5:30pm – 9:30pm, the cost of the program includes the students’ books, CPR training, state exam fees, supplies for clinical hours, and 3 weeks of clinical hours. During the program students are offered extra training and tutoring, and they even take out a day for the instructor to come out and work with the students before their state examination to ensure they are confident and ready on exam day. The state exam is conducted at the school and students will know the same day if they passed or failed their exam.
The classroom at the school holds up to 14 students so the classes are small and hands on which has been great in optimizing the student’s success. During the day the QMA classes are held in the classroom, this is the class that Epperson teaches. In order for a CNA to be eligible to take the class to become a QMA they must first complete 1,000 hours as a CNA. This usually takes about 6 months for a full time CNA. Epperson has seen many of her students become a CNA and come right back to her after their hours were complete to become a QMA. As you can imagine this is both rewarding and exciting for her as their teacher and mentor.
The QMA course is 4 weeks long and classes are conducted on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am – 4:30pm. 40 hours of clinicals are done on the student’s own time for the QMA course. Students are able to complete these hours at their job outside of work hours or with one of the school's contracted partners within 90 days.
The CNA class is $700 and the QMA class is $1,000. Epperson urges future students to reach out to WorkOne to see if they are eligible to receive funding for the class, so they don’t have to come out of pocket. When this isn’t an option for the student Epperson also has a flexible payment plan in place so that students are still able to afford the classes. The payment plan consists of a $200 down payment to register and start the class and the remaining balance can be paid in weekly payments.
After classes are complete and exams are passed students are able to start working immediately. New CNA’s and QMA’s can start picking up hours that are available at the nursing homes where they did their clinicals. Some students are even hired at those nursing homes once they finish the course, they have no long-term commitment to Essential Healthcare Staffing, LLC.
Essential Healthcare Academy, LLC will be launching a new location in Indianapolis, Indiana this spring where Kiera Jackson, Epperson’s partner and co-owner will lead the operations as Epperson does here in the Fort Wayne location. The two are very excited to be expanding and creating new career opportunities for Indianapolis residents. Epperson also hopes to move the Fort Wayne location to a bigger space so that she may start offering morning CNA classes, phlebotomy classes, IV certification for nurses, and an LPN course is in the works for the school and may even be available as early as 2024!
Epperson’s advice for people who may want to start their own business in the future is that you just have to do it, you don’t have to have it all figured out, you just have to take the first step and figure it out as you go. Her advice for future CNA’s and QMA’s is to take it seriously and not just come into the field for the money because that is someone’s loved one you are caring for and they deserve quality care from people who care, want, and love to help them. You are the heart of healthcare!
For information on enrollment and staffing visit https://essentialhca.com.