Take It to Heart

From Bethany Knight, best-selling author of For Goodness' Sake: A Daily Book of Cheer for Nurse's Aides and Others Who Care, and Lisa Cantrell and Lori Porter, co-founders of the National Association for Geriatric Nursing Assistants (NAGNA), comes a new book on attracting and rewarding nursing assistants. Armed with extensive experience, the authors take an insightful and probing look at the staffing crisis in long-term care, and offer valuable suggestions to stop CNA turnover. "We are not the authors, merely the privileged scribes of Take It to Heart: CNAs' Solutions to the Staffing Crisis. Since 1981, we've been taught the book's message by listening to and watching thousands of dedicated nursing assistants. Reading their wisdom as presented here, readers will discover how to end the staffing crisis in long-term care."

Bethany Knight owns Northern Knights, a creative services company serving long-term care providers. An author and futurist, she wrote For Goodness' Sake: A Daily Book of Cheer for Nurses' Aides and Others Who Care, (Hartman Publishing Inc., 1-800-999-9534) and "Assuring Professional Pastoral Care fo Every Nursing Home Resident," published in Spiritual Care for Persons with Dementia (Haworth Press, 1999). Bethany is a former long-term care ombudsman, state health care association executive director and lobbyist. She is a licensed pastor and nursing assistant. In December 1998, she was a participant in the Way of Peace, a 54-person, international pilgrimage in India, led by the Dalai Lama. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Central Michigan University, Bethany has done post graduate work at Duke Divinity School. She lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont with her husband Thurmond, a physician and luthier, where she is completing her first novel, Eve Within. Bethany is guided by this belief, "All life will be treasured, and peace will comfort the planet, when the caregivers of the world tell their precious love stories." Visit her website at www.tenderlovingcalling.org Lisa Cantrell, NAGNA's director of development, started her career in long-term care as a nursing assistant. She attended Franklin Vocational Technical School and became an LPN in 1983. Lisa worked six years as a charge nurs in nursing homes, and earned her RN from Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri in 1990. Since 1992, Lisa has worked as a director of nursing and corporate nurse consultant. She is an accomplished public speaker on matters of CNA recognition and development. Lisa and her two children, Laci and Matthew, live in Joplin, Missouri.Lori Porter, executive director of NAGNA, began her career in long-term care as a dietary aide in 1981. Within a year she became a certified nursing assistant, a position she held for nearly seven years. Pursuing her education, Lori earned her associates degree in the arts at Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri in 1988 and became a licensed nursing home administrator the following year. Ms. Porter holds administrator licenses in Missouri and Kansas. She worked for seven years in nursing home operations as an administrator and operations director in a multi-facility corporation. In 1995, she and Lisa Cantrell founded NAGNA. Lori is a sought-after, national public speaker and passionate advocate for America's nursing assistants. She lives in Joplin, Missouri.