Meet PHI’s Workforce and Curriculum Development Consultant

Kayt Norris recently joined PHI as our Workforce and Curriculum Development Consultant, where she will lead various state and local initiatives to improve direct care workforce training and employment practices, including projects in Baltimore, Minnesota, San Francisco, and Wisconsin.

Here are three things to know about Kayt.

1. What were you doing before joining PHI?
I started my career as a middle school teacher through Teach for America, teaching in high-need public schools in rural Mississippi and St. Louis. In 2010, I joined the newly founded Teach for India, supporting teacher training and program management in three cities in India over the course of three years. I later joined Bridge International Academies, the largest chain of low-cost private schools in the world, serving more than 100,000 pupils in 400 schools across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India. As the Global Director of Teacher Training, I supported the development of our teacher recruitment and selection model, and oversaw our teacher training institutes around the globe, training over 3,000 local teachers a year.

2. How did you become interested in long-term care?
My interest in long-term care arose from my personal experiences taking care of my parents. In college my stepfather was diagnosed with cancer, and I moved home soon after graduation to help my family care for him. Thanks in large part to the incredible team of home health nurses and aides, we were able to provide care for him at home. Soon after my stepfather passed away, my father was diagnosed with cancer, and I eventually moved home to take care of him as well. Unfortunately, my father was unable to access the home care we needed, and he subsequently moved into a nursing home. I lived and worked in the nursing home with my dad for two months, and I saw first-hand the heroic work of the team of nurses and CNAs who cared for him. Both experiences were transformational for me and compelled me to look for a way to have impact in this field.

3. Tell us about your role at PHI.
At PHI, I’m able to leverage my diverse experiences in the teacher talent pipeline in order to effectively consult homecare providers in areas such as recruitment, selection, training, management, career pathway development, and retention. I lead various state and local initiatives to improve direct care workforce training and employment practices, notably in Baltimore, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. My personal goal is to elevate the value of home care in the health care industry, while building the capacity of home care organizations, so that more families have access to the home care that was so beneficial to my family. I believe training, supporting, optimizing, and empowering the direct care workforce are the keys to that goal.