New Bridge Cleveland to Expand, Open Healthcare Workforce Training Center

With the recent acquisition of the 66,000-square-foot Case Elementary School buiding, New Bridge Cleveland is bringing a resource back to the St. Clair neighborhood and expanding its offerings.

The nonprofit’s mission is to train under-resourced communities in Cuyahoga County in healthcare careers by providing free, acute training and certifications.

New Bridge is currently training phlebotomists, cell processors and medical assistants. Every year, the nonprofit receives over 1,000 applications for 150 training courses, says Bethany Friedlander, New Bridges president and CEO. More than 300 students enroll every year.

“We have approximately thirteen people who want every seat in the organization, which is wonderful but also means that we have to be thoughtful about who is getting in,” says Friedlander.

New Bridge, founded in 2010, prioritizes selecting candidates who are emotionally and psychologically ready for the training program and aims to build on students’ empathy and passion for healthcare. With the expansion in a diverse neighborhood, the nonprofit is hoping to increase diversity in the healthcare field by being able to accept more applicants.

The 66,000-square-foot building at 4050 Superior Avenue was built in the 1970s and will be renovated into a workforce training center, which will include a daycare with affordable prices for students who are single mothers and need childcare services.

Friedlander says the lack of affordable childcare is one of the main reasons why the nonprofit loses students.

“We’re hoping to be able to use the rent structure to make it as affordable as possible,” says Friedlander. “[Our students] can go downstairs and take [their] baby and go outside and sit on a picnic bench and have lunch with your baby and then come back to your class. That is so moving to me.”

Most of the students at New Bridge are female, with 88% of them being women of color and about 90% of those being mothers. Friedlander says about third of New Bridge’s students have had some post-secondary education, but many never got the opportunity to return to school due to financial issues.

“Sometimes it’s because they aren’t totally sure what they want to do in terms of their career,” Friedlander says. “So, they want sort of a low-risk opportunity to get training and have that become meaningful in terms of employment right away.”

Friedlander says that 84% of New Bridge students graduate and 80% of those students will go to work in three hospital systems—MetroHealth, Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals—and 57% of the students will continue to work at those hospitals in five years.

With its new establishment in Case Elementary’s former building, New Bridge is focusing on students’ need for success in both academic and personal sectors of their lives. But Friedlander says the mission doesn’t start with New Bridge or end with the daycare center. New Bridge wants to be a resource to its community with goals of distributing fresh produce every summer, providing blood pressure and diabetes checks on the weekends and bringing Metro’s mammogram bus to the center once a quarter.

“It’s really about health equity and full health,” says Friedlander. “If the family isn’t healthy, if the individual isn’t healthy, they cannot make the patients healthy. [There are] really hard choices women are forced to make.”

New Bridge Cleveland is currently in the initial planning phase for the new building.

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