The need
Rural Colorado is running out of caregivers.
More than 809,000 people live across Colorado's 52 rural and frontier counties. The workforce that cares for them has been shrinking for five years, and for a lot of families the nearest training program is hours away.
of Colorado's healthcare workforce has left the field since 2020.
CRHC, Snapshot of Rural Health in Colorado, 2025statewide talent gap for certified nurse aides, the largest of any direct-care role.
2023 Colorado Talent Gap, via CRHC Snapshot 2025rural Colorado counties have no nursing home at all.
CRHC, Snapshot of Rural Health in Colorado, 2026Why now
The caregiver-hour cap.
Colorado is cutting the number of weekly hours a paid family caregiver can be reimbursed for. Across Personal Care, Homemaker, Health Maintenance Activities, and Long-Term Home Health, the cap falls from a 112-hour baseline to 56 hours by July 2027.
If you are caring for a medically complex child at home, those hours are not a line in a budget. They are the difference between managing and not managing, and the only thing that fills the gap is a trained caregiver living close enough to show up.
Colorado Medicaid long-term services and supports, 2026–2027
Applies to Personal Care, Homemaker, Health Maintenance Activities, and Long-Term Home Health, with an exceptions process. Source: Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, LTSS Sustainability Update Blog.
Our work
Four things that keep a caregiver in this work.
Care that reaches people who have had to go without it.
Someone in your corner from the first class to the certificate.
Real, state-approved training, brought to your town.
Neighbors looking after neighbors, for the long haul.
Programs
How we do the work.
Our purpose is the care workforce across the whole region. Programs are how that purpose actually reaches a town, and the first one is already up and running.
Full Circle Care Academy
A mobile nurse aide training program that brings state-approved CNA certification to towns with no program within driving distance.
Who we serve
Our graduates go wherever they are needed.
They are not trained for one employer. They go on to work in the hospitals, clinics, and care homes a whole region leans on, and in the houses of families looking after someone they love.
Governance
Employer-neutral, by policy.
Full Circle Foundation is employer-neutral. Graduates choose their own employers, and any provider in the region is free to recruit them. No employer receives preferential access to students, placement, hiring, or curriculum influence.