Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same
is greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4)
2018 has started as a season of new beginnings. We are eight
years into the Latrobe journey, recognizing a genesis of new starts and revised
focus. While we continue our efforts in career readiness and commercial
readiness, an area of need that I never imagined addressing and humbly serving
is with youth workforce development. Here’s the backstory:
I got my first job in high school because I enrolled in
Distributive Education Clubs of America, commonly known as DECA (https://www.deca.org/). Back then, a major
component of the course and benefit to students was that we were required to
obtain work experience. In exchange for high school credit hours, students were
expected to have gainful employment in our local community, working 15-20 hours
per week. My personal motivation was two-fold: 1) I wanted to work to get out of
the school day early. 2) I needed to work to earn my own money toward the purchase
my first car.
Fast forward thirty years: Latrobe
have been contracted to assist our local school district with career navigation
and career readiness implementation. The high school subscribes to Jobs for
America’s Graduates, JAG (http://www.jag.org/)
as an evidence based workforce development model as a preventive measure
against dropping out for at-risk youths. Thirty seven core work competencies
are grouped into six outcome clusters (http://old.jag.org/model_competencies.htm):
- Career Development Competencies (6)
- Job Attainment Competencies (7)
- Job Survival Competencies (7)
- Basic Skills Competencies (5)
- Leadership and Self-Development Competencies (5)
- Personal Skills Competencies (7)
In the middle, I am curious as to how an entire generation of
children missed out on the importance of the high school work experience as an
element self-sufficiency and growth. I say that because as 2018 began, I got a
call from one of my former high school teachers asking for a personal favor in
coaching her granddaughter, a recent college graduate, who has little work
evidence on her resume to support the return-on-investment from her education
to sustain her salary expectations. The grandmother remarked that these children
graduate from high school with fewer life skills than we (our generation)
learned in high school (how to obtain, survive, maintain, and develop, and
thrive while working).
Instead of blaming the children, I challenge economic
development (education, business, and entrepreneurial communities). How are
children expected to develop the basic work skills if not invested in and
required to obtain said skills as youth? The capstone of the semester long
project with the school district is a community sponsored summer jobs program with
a purposed intent to match the needs of the business community with
the desire of students to earn valuable work experience by
- Promoting entry
level jobs for up to 100 students who participate in career readiness
- Marketing job
opportunities for local business owners who want to support workforce
development
- Providing a
potential pipeline of students and job opportunities for the JAG program
Stay tuned and follow the journey of summer youth workforce
development in our community. Education,
economics, and workforce development all go hand-in-hand (Marilyn Smith,
SETX Workforce Solutions). If you have suggestions about what has worked in
your experience, feel free to comment, or drop us a line at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com.
