This Nurse Can Own Their Own Home Care Business- Ep. 66
As a mother of four, a law student and a business woman Christine is known and admired internationally as a ‘transformational trainer’; specializing in training people in how to set up their own nursing agencies, care home and thus going on to ‘transform’ their working lives. Christine is an author and has 27 years of experience in running businesses. She has set up and ran training schools in the USA, Cyprus, Jamaica and the United Kingdom, helping clients setup and run their own homes.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: [00:00:00] All right, Nurses on Fire. I have the honor to have Christine Blackledge here with me, and we are going to talk about earning financial freedom through starting a nurse owned business. So, Hey Christine, I'll give you an opportunity to introduce yourself and we'll talk about how you've been able to help nurses achieve financial independence through starting their own business.
Christine Blackledge: [00:00:29] Hi. So thank you for having me as well. So just a bit of information about them. Well, I am, I'm Christine Blackledge and I help nursepeunurs start healthcare business as well, and this can be worldwide. So I've helped people in the States. I've helped them in the UK. I'm actually going over to Jamaica to towards the end of this year as well, to set up an office to help individuals set up a nursing agency as well in Jamaica.
So just a bit of information about me over 30 years experience in setting up health care businesses. So that ranges from nursing agency care home, which you call senior living homes. And also mother and baby unit, and we've also done foster homes as well. Children's homes as well. So it's quite varied. I tend to, I love care.
I am passionate and caring for people. And I like to help nurses who are hardworking individuals to get financial freedom as well as working hard in what they're doing and what they love to do.
Naseema McElroy: [00:01:45] I love that. I love that. And you yourself, aren't a nurse, but you have started all these nursing businesses and help other people do the same.
What encouraged you to start on this path yourself?
Christine Blackledge: [00:01:59] Well, it started with my, my uncle at the time he needed some care and I was looking around and I just couldn't find something that I felt was suitable for him because there were larger homes. So I looked to see if I could sorta do one myself, a smaller house and I set up my own boutique care home.
And. It all started from there really? And I enjoy caring and looking after individuals, but I like to create the homely environment as much as possible.
Naseema McElroy: [00:02:36] That is awesome. That is so awesome.
Christine Blackledge: [00:02:40] So I started off as a healthcare assistant and I was working really hard. I then got my, Care management qualification.
I then became a senior carer. I then also decided to start my own care home that is a boutique care home. So I have the care management qualification because I thought, you know what? I'm working hard for someone else. Let me work hard for myself. A good income from it as well. So that's why I decided to do what I.
I'm sort of on this path now, I really want to teach people. I love to teach that's part of my passion is teaching people. So for me, it was a natural progression from being the senior care or doing the training for staff members, inductions and things like that. So that was my progression. And I've been care managers for care homes as well.
So. You know, with my uncle needed the support. I then decided to set up my own boutique care home. And boy, I was full, straight away. As soon as I got licensed and registered with the government.
Naseema McElroy: [00:04:04] You know what? I love that instead of being an issue as something that, Oh my God, this is a problem. And complain about it.
You are able to turn that into a business, pivot that into something that worked for you. And I think that's phenomenal. how did you go from your single care home to now teaching people around the world, how to open their own nurse business?
Christine Blackledge: [00:04:31] Well, I went from doing that. Don't get me wrong. I loved what I was doing, but my true passion was teaching.
And I, that felt, you know, if I've managed to do this and I did my first care home, it was actually on a. Council estate in the UK, it was, council, big, huge estate. So people thought that this would be impossible for me to sell the care home, but there's lots of people that live in the community that live in a counselor state that need care.
Naseema McElroy: [00:05:08] So you're going to have to explain what the counselor state is to me. Cause I don't know it.
Christine Blackledge: [00:05:14] Okay. So counselor state is the government where they give you a house or they'll give you an apartment that you need to live in to rent. So that is what is called a council estate is owned by the council.
Naseema McElroy: [00:05:31] Oh, it's kinda like government subsidized housing or,
Christine Blackledge: [00:05:34] that's right. Yeah. So it's like housing association, that type of thing. So, yeah, so I purchased the house on the council of state and then I turned it into. So on the council of state is very large, so people still need to need care. So for me to set that up, the first on this council this day, the older government agencies would like, wow, I'm going to send someone to you. You know? So I'd arrange with social workers to come and see, see my house. It was registered, it was licensed.
I was all ready to go. They came round and that day they was like, they filled the home. I was full on the first day that they opened. , then I then brought the, I have my house, which was right opposite because I lived on that counselor, stayed with my house that I bought. So I then. Leave it out of my house with my family and turn that into chaos.
The men and I specialized in African Caribbean.
Naseema McElroy: [00:06:48] Wow. Wow. That's incredible. That's incredible. And so that makes me think, so you help people all around the world do this, but I'm thinking about like even state to state in the U S like, legislation and laws are different to set up, homes like this.
How do you help people do that? When there's so many variables,
Christine Blackledge: [00:07:13] there's a lot of variables. So, like when I was in Atlanta, like we did the medical school and we did the medical staffing. And so we have to go to the government obviously and apply for a license. We got the license and then they have the policies and procedures in place.
That was adhering to that law in that town. So the laws different for New York at the same as it is in Atlanta, California, I kind of went to Atlanta first, then, then it was me and then go into California. So it's looking at what those laws are and then matching each. Thing, having that evidence to back up that you're capable and competent to run that particular type of business.
You have to have a nurse, for example, to be the care manager, for example, to be looking after the staff members, for example, that are nurses to check their credentials and, you know, just making sure that it's compliant and that the. Staff members have got the right paperwork and that they're able to do the job and that their criminal records check it's fine and things like that.
And then there's the marketing side of things. So I would say to do that, there's about research because even though I'm here in the UK, I still can follow through and I do the same in Cyprus. That's what we do in here in Cyprus. We're doing the license here. Take some time here because there's a lot of red tape saying when you go to America, red tape, you just got to do it.
Naseema McElroy: [00:08:59] So you just have to understand the local laws according to where you are and just apply those. And, but because you have a proven system in place, you kind of have a structure with that you can work within. And so it's adaptable to where you are. So if a nurse wanted to open up their own home and she was to hire you on, Do you do individual coaching around it, or do you do like group programs where you walk people through it?
How does your business work?
Christine Blackledge: [00:09:27] So, what I do is I do boot camps either. I do a boot camp where someone comes to, to the bootcamp. Obviously these days it's online, due to COVID. so we do them online now, but, we also do them face to face where we'll have a group of say, 15, 20 people in a room.
Obviously it would have to be. Allowed because of the situation at the moment. So we do boot camps for two days, four days, five days. Depending on what laws are actually involved because obviously there's complications for, residential care home is there's a lot more paperwork as opposed to medical stuff, for example.
Okay. So there's that we do them online. I do one to one coaching. I do group coaching online as well. So which works really well because people can network as well. Which is really helpful for business owners. And you've got to have the right mindset as well to do a business. But if you work in so hard for someone else, why not work hard and do it for yourself.
Naseema McElroy: [00:10:44] And that's the thing about nurses as nurses know how to work hard. They're not, if they're not afraid of working hard, so that's a great audience to do this. And plus put it,
you have to have licensure. To be able to do that. So that's. It's a really phenomenal business model that you have, and I love what you're doing.
Can you share some success stories of some nurses that have gone through your training, and that are open that have their own businesses now.
Christine Blackledge: [00:11:14] Well, when you can, even today, I'll explain even today, I've had, some emails come through and to nurse that two separate businesses then nurses and they both said they've got their license through.
One of them registered with the care quality commission in the well in the UK. And second person was in us, email me to say, Hey, I bought the contract. I'm so happy. And she was actually laid off from work because the contract ended. So she wasn't concerned about that. Cause she had no money coming in and Hey Presto, she's got her own business now and she's been off work while she'd been laid off for a month.
And now she's got a contract with.
Naseema McElroy: [00:12:06] that's incredible teaching people how to generate income from nothing to starting their own successful businesses. Always tell people that there is infinite ways to make money. And so I love that you just help people go from zero to having their own business and especially, Right now it can be a little discouraging, especially for nurses because this is environment in which we didn't necessarily sign up for all this stuff that we're going through.
and a lot of nurses are looking for a way to change things up so that they have better quality of life. And so just bottom line, they're safe. and we talked about this a little bit offline, but can you explain the kind of businesses that you help nurses set up? Cause there's, there's a few, right.
Christine Blackledge: [00:12:58] Yeah, there's the, we've got the foster agency as well. there's the children's home. Children's care home. There's the mother and baby unit. There is the, the care home, like I said, for the elderly as well as adults. It's not just elderly as adults. And, we do home care agency as well, which is. You know, complex care as well in the community, as well as in care homes and hospitals as well.
Naseema McElroy: [00:13:31] So I'm a labor and delivery nurse and I've never heard of a mother baby unit. Can you explain that to me? That's my selfish ask.
Christine Blackledge: [00:13:39] No, no. Mother and baby unit is when a person is struggling to cope with it, their newborn. Or that they're expecting and they're vulnerable. So the mother it's going to go, the child is proposed well, but the mother is wonderful as well and is struggling to cope mentally and need support.
So when they are, when they gave him birth, for example, then you would then it's supporting them in their daily lives of looking after their newborn baby and recording how they're coping and managing. So that when they're ready to get their own place, then they're able to be placed in their own accommodation.
So they couldn't be at risk. The child could be at risk, for example. So it's just making sure that they're able to cope because they've had the support of how to look after a baby.
Naseema McElroy: [00:14:47] I was just thinking, like, I don't think there's anything like that in the States. And, Wow. So have you ever had helped anybody set any, anything up like that here in the States?
Christine Blackledge: [00:15:00] I haven't, but I know it's needed.
Naseema McElroy: [00:15:09] Oh, my God it's so needed. It's so needed. you know, the way that we handle birth in the United States is a little bit challenging, you know? so, wow. I think that's phenomenal. And what an amazing business opportunity, because there is, like you said, such a need, just like you discover it, , that are you fulfill that need, that your uncle had in starting a business.
Like these are, this is the way that I think I'm just like, Oh my God, like. This is something that is drastically needed here. Okay. How do nurses start working with you?
Christine Blackledge: [00:15:44] They can contact me that will, they can go to my website. Right. Which is, Christineblackledge.com. I'm there. just my first name and surname and.com then, you know, they'll see more information about me also got Facebook group as well.
They can contact me by telephone email as well. There's lots of ways.
Naseema McElroy: [00:16:09] So, if we wanted to bring you to the United States to do a bootcamp, what would that take?
Christine Blackledge: [00:16:16] Not very much, not very much because I have family in the state. And so , when the pandemics on, obviously we can't travel anywhere, but, you know, I normally do visit every year, ran away.
So. So it's not a problem for me to come to the States. I love to come to the States.
Naseema McElroy: [00:16:41] And for me, it's easy for me to envision the levels of financial freedom that this would open up for people, for nurses and just their family and just generationally, for you personally, can you explain what levels of freedom it's opened up for you?
Christine Blackledge: [00:16:59] The levels of freedom, where you can go anywhere in the world, you can run an agency anywhere in the world.
Let's put it that way. You can be on holiday. You can move somewhere and still run your agency. As long as you've got staff members there that are reliable and your manager, you can still be anywhere in the world. You know, and that's, what's so good about this is that it gives you freedom to go wherever you want to go, you know, take some time out and your business is still running and you're not losing any money.
Naseema McElroy: [00:17:43] Yeah. That's definitely a dream of mine to be location independent, to be able to travel the world with my kids, to world school them and sell it to be able to have a business that can support that is phenomenal. And I know that there's other nurses that would love to do the same.
Well, after all the travel restrictions lift obviously, but I mean, like. It just speaks to the fact that you can do it from home. You don't have to go into the hospital. You don't have to go into these homes, you set them up and then you can run them remotely. And I think that's such an amazing opportunity for nurses, especially nurses that are looking to transition out of the bedside.
We have the skills we have. What is, Hey, And you have a streamlined process to help people get there. So I think that that is phenomenal. Well, thank you so much, Christine, because you have opened up my eyes to this whole new world of possibility. Oh, of course. And I know other nurses out there. Love to benefit from the services that you provide.
And I will, provide links in the show notes to your Facebook group and to your page and your resources. So people can reach out to you, but I applaud you for addressing a need that was out there that are just complaining or just compromising new, created your own solution. And not only that, and you turned it into a business where you teach other people to do the same.
And you help vulnerable populations and you help Afro Caribbean people throughout the world. Not only as patients, but as, nurses and that is strongly needed. So I applaud you. I love what you're doing and thank you so much for sharing with my community.
Christine Blackledge: [00:19:31] Thank you. I really enjoy why Jay said it. That's why I know this is my passion.
Naseema McElroy: [00:19:38] Excellent.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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