Nichole Nutter sits beside Brendan O’Leary, a resident at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, as O’Leary enjoys his free computer time Googling facts about Disney characters.
Nutter, of Antrim, has filled many roles in 11 years at Crotched Mountain – mostly working as a residential councilor or supervisor in the center’s residential housing.
She first came to work at Crotched as a mother with young children, because she could work a full-time job with long shifts on the weekend, leaving her week free to stay home with her children and care for her disabled mother.
“Coming to the Mountain, I had no idea I’d be here this long, and that this would become a lifelong career for me,” said Nutter. “But the opportunities for training never end and the growth potential doesn’t end.”
That kind of flexibility and opportunity for upward mobility are a real draw for employees, explained Lorrie Rudis, vice-president of human resources at Crotched. That, and the opportunity for entry-level employees to steadily advance in their career – a path that Nutter took to become a residential coordinator.
And because there is room for employees to naturally move up the ladder and stay long-term with the company, attracting good quality candidates becomes an important part of the process.
A few months ago, Crotched Mountain began employing a diversity recruiter to work with immigrant populations in larger cities such as Nashua or Concord to help them understand the criteria for a entry-level job at Crotched and assist in gaining resources for things like improving English skills and brushing up on interviewing skills.
“This is a population where the work ethics are great, and we do see it as an untapped resource,” said Rudis.
One of the largest employee pools that Crotched Mountain has, said Rudis, is the direct care area, such as the position Nutter holds, where people are working with and supervising the clients and patients at Crotched Mountain. For that position, there are few educational requirements for an entry-level individual – they must be over 18 years old and have a high school diploma. But once they are in the door, training begins, starting with a six-day general company orientation, followed by another week of orientation in the specific field the employee will be working in.
And in addition to training on the job, employees are encouraged to take additional training and employment enhancement options – paraprofessionals in the Crotched Mountain school can move from a level I to a level II by taking a math and English course through Granite State College, which is provided by Crotched Mountain on-site, said Rudis.
In addition, Crotched Mountain is starting a partnership with New England College in Henniker and Nashua Community College to help to create a curriculum that will produce paraeducators who are suitable to enter the workforce and to hopefully create a feeder for the Crotched Mountain School.
Nutter has taken the opportunity for multiple extra trainings – dialectical behavior therapy, trama focused cognitive behavior therapy, collaborative problem solving, foster care training, team building skills and seminars on effective management and leadership.
“It has been such a benefit for me to be able to grow,” said Nutter. “When I train someone, I train them so that they can eventually take my job from me. Because I know that there’s always another place above that I can go to.”