Welcome to LIVE from the 2024 NAWDP Youth Symposium - Part 1, a special two-part podcast series recorded straight from this year's NAWDP Youth Symposium.
Podcast Transcript
ALEXIS FRANKS: Good afternoon, good morning, good evening to all you workforce development professionals across the country. My name is Alexis Franks, and I am your director of membership with the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals, and today, in today’s podcast, we actually are live at the 2024 Youth Symposium for NAWDP, and I have with me BJ Paige, our local expert in youth workforce development, so. BJ, welcome to you.
BJ PAIGE: Thank you. And how much do I owe you for the introduction?
ALEXIS FRANKS: Nothing at all. Nothing at all. That’s all truth. But we appreciate you joining us today. We’re here in Phoenix, Arizona. Happy to be here. The energy has been great, connecting with some other youth professionals. Yeah. So. BJ, I know you have had a long term relationship with NAWDP, and although you and I are fairly new to meeting each other in person, I wanted to just share a little bit with our listeners about the work that you’re doing to impact youth across the country, where you are in the country, and then what’s your why?
BJ PAIGE: Yeah, just first, thank you again for just allowing me to be a part of the podcast. I believe that opportunities like this really just add value to not just the work that you know, you and I do, but this is now on a footprint for the next person and the next generation of leaders. So this is important. So thank you.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Absolutely.
BJ PAIGE: I want to start by just saying currently the Executive Director of Youth Guidance DC. Youth Guidance DC is in six high schools in DC, some of the toughest high schools across the country, and the goal of youth guidance is really just helping young people go from one level of life, which is high school, to transition to college and career readiness. So coming into that role this year was amazing, because it’s exactly what I’ve done the last 15 years. Actually do the same work here at NAWDP, and I just wanted to highlight that at the top of this podcast, because I’m excited about that.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Yes, yes. Well, that’s some good work that you’re doing. You’re doing. I know that we in conversation talked a little bit about this being National Apprenticeship Week, and how critical of an opportunity that’s becoming for our youth that may not look to going to the university or their technical colleges for a long term education, but are ready to get into the workforce. So can you talk a little bit about what you’re doing and how that relates?
BJ PAIGE: Yeah, one of my last quote, unquote. Y’all can’t see my air quotes. One of my last quote, unquote jobs was the Baltimore, DC Building Trades Council Director. And the goal of being in that position was finding more young people to get into the trades. So when you talk about apprenticeship and what that really looks like, I found that that is like the elixir. You know, last year, you know, I did the keynote last year, and I talked about the 10,860,000 youth and young adults across the country that don’t have a full time career. Apprenticeships is like the legit, like guarantee to a career. So if you have any youth that you’re kind of not sure about, or even if the youth are not sure, always talk about not being sure. And I’m sure we’re going to talk about that a little bit from my book. But when you’re not sure it’s okay, and pre apprenticeships and apprenticeships is the exact thing you should do, because it gives you a chance to peek at different career opportunities within apprenticeships and trades, and sometimes the exploration is just different for young people, like most people who go to college or who are primed for college, we all know they started that in like elementary or middle. What about our young people that started that journey in high school? They’re least likely to go to college. So apprenticeship, to me, is like a guaranteed lay up to what I call upper middle class.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Absolutely, I agree. And I think for now, the challenges that our youth are facing today, they look nothing like from when we were teenagers, so they have a new level that they have to consider outside of being ready for workforce, they’re considering being ready for life, surviving life, and what that looks like now. So I agree with you that apprenticeship piece is definitely critical. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that impact on a youth? Means to you, maybe your experience as a youth, you know? How did, how did this really come about for you?
BJ PAIGE: Yeah, so I say I’m, like, the 1% that made it, right? So I’m the Youth. I’m your hard to serve youth, right? So I remember getting expelled from Prince George’s County, that’s in Maryland Public Schools, and then getting expelled from DC public schools, losing my scholarship, going to homeschooling, and getting kicked out of homeschooling and having to find my way at 17. So I went to the Air Force, one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. And unfortunately, trouble found me in the Air Force, so I had to, like, find a career. So in doing so, man, I was coming home, I had my now wife and two kids, and I had to find a career. So I worked in, like, every career field you can think of, Alexis, every career field you can think of, and I found myself sitting in front of a gentleman. Actually, you all know this gentleman in the workforce world. I was sitting in front of Walter Simmons at the time. This was pre-Employ Prince George’s, so this is before Employ Prince George’s. And they were like, Do you know what workforce development is? I just told you, I worked at every career field there was. So I’m like, yep. And they like, what is it? And I’m like, I have no idea, right? No idea what that word is. And I was introduced to this wonderful thing of workforce development. And that was around 2012-2013 No, 2013-14, so I said, You know what this thing is amazing. So we get to find people and connect them to jobs and put them to work. This is life changing! Where was this 10 years ago? Come to find out, obviously it was here 10 years ago. But people didn’t know. So I felt like it was my goal from at least 2016 I know for sure on, to say, You know what, for the remainder of my life, I’m going to make sure that I bring workforce development to the underserved population.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Wow, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And we can see the fruits of your hard work today, yeah, and all the impacts that you’ve done, and especially even in the world of NAWDP in the spaces and environments that we create for other professionals, to see how important it is for the work that we’re doing. Them, to see how they can keep pushing and motivating a young person in their local community, and even hearing your story. That’s huge, because we do need this industry to keep going and providing these services in new and innovative ways and keep our youth connected. Yeah. So we definitely appreciate the relationship here all the work that you’ve been doing. And so I know you mentioned a little bit ago about a book, yeah, tell me a little bit about your book.
BJ PAIGE: So this is my that’s my second book. I now have three with two more in the in the pipeline. Okay, so 2025, is gonna be huge. But that particular book that I was speaking on is called Finding Your Nemo, your new employment makeover. It’s your 10 step workforce development guide to finding your career. And in that book, I talk about real, tangible 10 Steps that’ll help any person that’s new to the workforce world to be better. It’s an easy read, but it’s very intentional in the steps, and I also use them same steps to speak to my workforce development leaders, like if you get lost, I call this thing called, you know, empathy fatigue. And you know what that is, right? But, but workforce fatigue, so when you find yourself in workforce fatigue and you’re like, Man, I’m tired, go to my book, man, you know, read those 10 Steps. It’ll bring you back to focus, and it really will help you. I’ve legit have made a curriculum built from that book so much that a present day and shout out to Tad Grants. Today, we have a certification training from that book that we partner with Tad Grants. It’s your certified youth services consultant training. Yes, we’ve already touched quite a few organizations from NAWDP, I’m sure we’re gonna touch a whole lot more. But that book, legit, that book is it
ALEXIS FRANKS: Okay, and we need it right? So our industry. We know it ebbs and flows. It changes over time. We go from one law to the next, but we need the people, the people without us can’t we can’t do the work. We can’t get it done and support our communities. So that’s definitely another way that you’re impacting not just the people that we’re serving, but the other workforce professionals in the industry trying to keep it pushing. So thank you. We appreciate that. Alright, so BJ, is there any advice that you would have from your book, from outside of your book, that you might have for a workforce professional that might be facing that, that workforce fatigue, that you talked about. What do you think?
BJ PAIGE: The I guess, the highlight, the fun highlight to that is invite me out. Like, invite me, it’s something special in that room. Like, always say, get in the room. And what I mean by that is invite it doesn’t have to be BJ, but invite somebody out that has that special sauce, just to bring it back to reality. You know, we often talk about like, what are these steps? Like I talked about the 10 steps, one through 10. Sometimes the hardest step for a young person, and a person helping the young people is step zero to one. We forget that, yes, so we need that zero to one reminder. So people like me to come out. Please invite us out. I mean, that’s the answer. And I do want to give one quick thing I couldn’t wait, since we’re live here at the conference. As I walked around, here’s my challenge to you listeners, if you know that you are in the youth space, be present. Like, be youthful. Have fun. Some people look at me funny. Sometimes, you know, like, Well, you got on, you got on this t shirt, jeans. But then you ask, how we reaching young people? Like, I’m not asking you to change yourself, but be yourself. And I think sometimes we get caught up in the professionalism of being in the workforce development world, that we forget that we have to show the best authenticity that you can to yourself absolutely, because that authenticity that you show from yourself will bleed out into the young people.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Absolutely, absolutely, I love that. So here on workforce, on the mic, we always have mic drop moments. Uh oh, so BJ, you gave me ours for this episode. Be present. Be youthful. Be authentic to yourself. That’s the takeaway, right? We want something that we can leave with anyone that listens to this episode, and you definitely gave it to us. So thank you. We got our mic drop moment for today. I appreciate your time so much. I’m not going to take too much.
BJ PAIGE: Can I give a big thanks? I want to give a huge thanks to you for hosting this podcast. A huge thanks to NAWDP for showing up and showing out. Huge thanks to workforce 180 for partnering with you guys for this podcast, and a huge thanks to you listeners. Every time I get to speak, I always leave on this note, if nobody have told you today, I love you and I appreciate you. Yes, I love you and I appreciate you, yes, that’s all I got, yes.
ALEXIS FRANKS: Well BJ, we love you. We appreciate all the work that you’re doing. Keep it up. Invite. BJ out, have him come. Re energize your teams. If you’re looking for that motivation in the right space, in the right time, we got it right here for you. So BJ, thank you so much again. Enjoy the rest of the conference.
BJ PAIGE: I’m about to, yes.
ALEXIS FRANKS: All right, thank you so much.
