Over the past six years, Futuro Health has produced more than 12,000 completers across 36 healthcare occupational programs, helping adults gain the skills and credentials needed to enter healthcare careers while contributing to a stronger healthcare workforce.

That impact is reaching communities where the need is especially great. Nearly 1,000 Futuro Health completers reside in rural and medically underserved areas, where healthcare workforce shortages can have an outsized effect on access to care. Preparing people who already live in these communities can help strengthen the healthcare workforce from within. It creates opportunities for local residents to build careers while developing skills that respond to the needs of employers and patients close to home.

It’s also an example of the connection between health and wealth at the heart of Futuro Health’s mission. For individuals, healthcare training can open the door to continued education, career advancement and greater economic mobility (see Wensie’s story in this edition of eConnection). For employers and communities, it can help build a larger, more diverse and sustainable workforce while expanding access to care where it is needed most.

Futuro Health Scholar Spotlight

In 2025, Futuro Health expanded into Connecticut to help address healthcare workforce shortages and create more pathways to good-paying healthcare careers. Working with employers, education providers, and community organizations, Futuro Health is building a connected ecosystem that helps aspiring healthcare workers access training, develop in-demand skills, and advance their careers.

She found the Human Touch Healthcare™ course especially meaningful and considers it an important part of her healthcare education. Looking ahead, Wensie hopes to become a Physician Assistant and start a family of her own. “I think it is really great that Futuro Health is in Connecticut. They can help more people like me.”

Beyond the Gateway: Expanding Economic Mobility in the Care Economy

By: Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO, Futuro Health

McKinsey & Company's research on economic mobility offers a useful way to think about how workers advance from low-wage roles into well-paying, resilient careers. The framework identifies three types of jobs: Gateway Jobs, Origin Jobs, and Destination Jobs.

What would it take to move workers in Origin Jobs from wage earners to asset owners? It's a strategy to make these jobs more economically attractive and more sticky.

Over the coming months, you'll hear more about our journey to explore a concept we call the Care Enterprise Network. We will host three roundtables with leaders across sectors – healthcare, impact investing, housing, philanthropy and more - to help shape a model for economic mobility in the care economy.

Futuro Health in Your Community

Whether at community events, information sessions, or local health fairs, Futuro Health team members are connecting people with healthcare education, scholarship opportunities and career pathways that can change lives.

Meet Our Staff

Behind every Scholar success story is a team working to create opportunity. This month, meet two Futuro Health team members whose work helps connect learners with education, support, and career pathways.

Dr. Zainab Okolo of The JED Foundation: Building the Workforce and Systems Needed to Support Youth Mental Health

One in four young people in the U.S. experience a mental health condition or illness, but partly due to a shortage of trained child and adolescent mental health professionals, the majority will not receive the help they need. This leaves the door open for the unregulated offerings of AI platforms, an option that, according to a new study, 60% of middle school and high school students turn to when they feel sad, stressed, or lonely. “The important takeaway is not that every use of AI is harmful, but that for someone who feels isolated or cannot access care, it may become a substitute for professional support,” says Dr. Zainab Okolo, senior vice president of Policy Advocacy and Government Relations at the JED Foundation, which conducted the research. That’s why Dr. Okolo and her colleagues at JED are working with hundreds of schools and other organizations to build a coordinated system of supports for teens and young adults in an effort to protect their emotional health and prevent suicide. These “JED campuses” are trained to not only look for distress or crisis, but to create an environment in which mental health is considered a key marker in student success. As we mark Suicide Prevention Month, join WorkforceRx host and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for an exploration of ways to grow and supplement the mental health care workforce and the other resources our young people need.