In customer service, these students have been exploring the avenues of their career path. Pictured above are Seth Meade, Andrea Hill, Elyse O’Brien, Taylor Newman, Abigail Cutlip, LeeAnn Osborne and Ronnie Slack. (Photo by Ashley McCarty)
By Ashley McCarty
People’s Defender
The Adams County Youth Program began June 14, and for six weeks, students will be led along a preparatory journey in either technology, healthcare or customer service.
“I work for Future Plans. We are a member of the GRIT project, which is a coalition of organizations. GRIT stands for Growing Rural Independence Together, and the focus is on helping not only students but also adults look at ways to get aligned with their careers; discovering who they are, but also looking at the workforce training and connecting with employers. So, that whole continuum of building hope in the community,” said Strategic Implementation Director Kristy Amy of Future Plans.
Two years ago, GRIT began implementing the Future Plans Assessment in Adams County, which gauges the interest, personality and aptitudes of the individual for strategic career placement.
“Adams is the farthest ahead. It’s one of five counties as a part of our grant: Adams, Brown, Pike, Scioto and Highland. The GRIT Project was able to secure funding to assess both students and adults to help with the analysis and the career coaching to help individuals get on pathways. The GRIT Project is a coalition of organizations including OhioMeansJob, schools, community colleges and other agencies and community organizations. Locally, there are some churches interested in joining in as well as libraries. Anybody is welcome to join this effort, which is focused on finding new ways to bring economic prosperity to families and ultimately the community. The goal is not to tell people that they have to move, it’s about helping people stay where they want to live and connecting them with job other opportunities,” said Amy.
In the customer service classroom, seven students, led by Amy, are exploring the different avenues which make up their desired field.
“Yesterday, [on Tuesday], we spent some time doing our career exploration. We have a set of tools that help you see what you may be aligned for and if that work is remote or in-person. It’s an awesome way to think about building the life for yourself the way that you want to see it,” said Amy.
On Mondays and Fridays, an employer already established in the service industry teaches the program.
“We also have some employers that are partnered with us as well. On Mondays and Friday, we have an employer, Pearl Interactive, who does customer service work, and they’re teaching our program. Their trainer is actually in Arizona, so she joins us through Zoom. She remotely instructs, and the students get a chance to learn from an employer that ultimately has work-from-home jobs. That’s all part of it as well, introducing different concepts and different ways that people can ultimately work,” said Amy.
On Wednesday morning, the students had the opportunity to visit a radio station and speak on their experience so far.
“Our last day is July 23. In the end, every student will have had the opportunity to have completed training that leads to taking an industry certification. So, we’re going to be talking about utilizing OhioMeansJobs.com and the local OhioMeansJobs centers, plus sites like LinkedIn, and we will work on building resumes. In this program, they’re going to get a customer service certification. In our IT program, they’re going to get a CompTIA A+ Certification, and then on the healthcare side, they’re doing STNA, which ultimately starts you down the path initially to work in a nursing home, but a student could develop a career path to LPN and RN,” said Amy.
Elyse O’Brien, 17, has ambitions for a career in human services.
“I actually heard about this program from the CTC. I was in class one day, they called us down, and Kristy and a couple of other people that she works with came to the school and talked to us about the program. They said we were going to get paid, which is a plus in my opinion. She said it was a great opportunity, so I took it and ran with it,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien wanted to get her foot in the door for opportunities she could potentially use in a future career.
“I was thinking about maybe going in for medical coding, human services, or just something in that field. Helping people is my main goal,” she said.
One of her favorite experiences was exploring the results of her personality test.
“We did that sophomore year, but we were going over them in class yesterday. I thought it was really beneficial to find out more about our personalities and what careers we would fit into best,” said O’Brien.
Ronnie Slack, 18, aspires for a career in teaching or management. Like O’Brien, Slack also became privy to the program through the CTC.
“I decided to take the opportunity because personally, I feel like I don’t know anything about anything. So, I need to start. I took this program with GRIT for human resources because I’m a social person,” said Slack.
His favorite experience so far has also been the personality test. He found out — by no surprise — that he was an extrovert.
“We figured what work environments would best suit us,” he said.
Seth Meade, 18, is aiming for a business career.
“I learned about the class when Kristy came to our high school and just explained the program and everything it had to offer. I didn’t really know if I was going to do it, because I was also looking at internships for financial companies and business-related things. I’m going to school in the fall and I will be playing baseball there next year. I needed a way to make money to be able to afford college and live up there. When they offered this, with me wanting to go into business or finance, I felt like it was a good opportunity to learn things that are going to help me if I do start a business or working with people. I felt like this was background knowledge that would be useful in the next few years. Working 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day allowed me to not miss anything that I wanted to do in my last summer at the high school,” said Meade.
While the personality test was interesting for him, Meade also enjoyed talking with the Monday instructor on Zoom and learning about remote opportunities.
“We are very excited to have almost 30 students involved in this summer work experience. We’re doing this as a partnership with OhioMeansJobs, and it’s also part of the GRIT program. I’ve heard from students so far that this first week they have really learned a lot, and more importantly, they’ve learned a lot about themselves. The instructor that they’ve had this week in customer service has had them look back at their assessments, look at their personality traits, look at the type of work environment that they want to be in, and realize some of the things that they want to have in their career,” said Adams County Ohio Valley Board Member Gay Lynn Shipley.
That morning on the radio, the students shared how they were exploring different career paths that they hadn’t thought about before.
“I think that’s exciting, because being in a rural area, a lot of our students are not exposed to a lot of different types of jobs. The Future Plans Assessment gives them their top 25 career matches, and they can read about that, see the type of work environment, see what the money is and the geographical places that have those jobs. It allows them just to really explore who and what they want to be. The other enticing piece of this program is that students are getting paid to be here. So, it’s a work experience that they’re being paid to learn. Some of the students shared earlier today that it’s allowed them to still participate in sporting events in the evenings,” said Shipley.
Shipley hopes this program will serve as a valuable piece for the students they can someday use.
“—and it will help guide them down the correct career path because the one thing that we want our students to have is a job that they love. If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re probably not going to stick with it and you’re not going to be happy. So, we’re just hoping that this will really help them know what they want to do and help them discover who they want to be,” said Shipley.
