Transcript
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Hi, welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us here today on our March 30 Minutes of Excellence session. My name is Kim Meadows, and I am the Director of Training here at NAWDP. So again, we are glad to have you all here today. Before we get started and before I turn it over to our presenter, I have just a couple of housekeeping notes.
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Um, the first one is this session will be recorded. So you will have access to this even after our live event concludes. It will all be on our website, and I will also send you the recording out to your email, so you can definitely share it with your network.
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Um, any resources, including the slide deck that Jennifer shares with us here today will be emailed out to you as well, so you’ll have access to all of that, in addition to any other resources. So we’ll have all of that available to you once the live event ends.
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Um, another thing for our housekeeping notes, as we’re going through the presentation, as Jennifer is going through the presentation, you can put questions into the chat box because we only have 30 min, and we definitely want to maximize our time in this 30 min. If we don’t get to your question, we will do a QA document.
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So I’ll go back through, I’ll get all those questions that wasn’t answered, and we will develop a QA document that will be emailed out to you. But Jennifer will allow some time at the end to just go back and also answer some questions. So just wanted to let you know how that works before we get started.
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But at this time, I am excited to introduce our March 30 Minutes of Excellence session presenter, Jennifer Ricks, again, Chief Program Officer at Employee Prince George’s, who is going to come and talk to us today about engaging our youth and young adults. So, Jennifer, I will turn it over to you.
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Pam, thank you so much. Great afternoon, everyone. As Kim shared, my name is Jennifer Ricks. I am the chief program officer with Employee Prince George’s super excited to be here before you awesome workforce professionals. The work that we do is super important, imperative. I like to call ourselves superheroes.
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You know, you all are constantly saving the day and finding ways to to overcome challenges and give access to youth and young adults. So kudos to you for you all being here to invest in yourselves. Thank you for joining me today. As Kim shared, if you have any questions, please throw them in the chat. We’ll be happy to answer those at the end should time permit.
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But typically, if you do have questions, I won’t be able to see them, as I’m going to be able to dive into this wonderful information you’re going to get.
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So this 30 minutes of excellence session will spotlight how employee Prince George’s amazing youth services department engages youth and young adults throughout innovative, intentional program designs across our youth career connections.
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And knowledge equals you success programs. The session is going to focus on creative engagement strategies that capture interest early, keeps participants connected, and transition them from career curiosity to real-world readiness.
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Across the country, and I see that you all are everywhere across the country. Many of us are not necessarily struggling to get young people interested. We’re struggling to keep them engaged long enough to move them through meaningful outcomes. Youth engagement does not happen by accident.
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It happens through intentional program design, consistent touch points, relevant experiences and clear pathways that help young people see themselves in the opportunity. So before we dive into this wonderful presentation.
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I want to share a little bit about myself so that you know who you’re… who’s presented to you today. Again, I’m Jennifer. I am from Prince George’s County, Maryland. If you’re not familiar with the area, we like to call our area the DMV DC, Maryland and Virginia. Prince George’s County is nestled.
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within the DMV, we’re really close to Washington, DC, Virginia, and Baltimore. Of course, Maryland, for sure, right? And so I have 18 plus years of workforce development experiences, including service as a former.
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Educator for Prince George’s County Public Schools. I have the privilege of overseeing 10 different workforce development programs across Employee Prince George’s that serve Prince George’s County residents.
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I was… I am also the former director of the Youth Services Department of EPG, where we have the privilege of serving about 69,000 plus students across 70 plus middle and high schools. And I’ve also had the opportunity to present.
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add different nod of conferences, like the youth symposium, or if you’re familiar with the National Youth Employment Coalition, I’ve presented there as well.
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A little bit about Prince George’s County. Prince George’s County is home to nearly 1 million residents and is one of the most affluent majority Black counties in the United States. Located right outside of DC, as I shared, our community sits in the intersection of government, technology, healthcare, and education.
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So this creates a really unique opportunity and responsibility for us to ensure young people are connected to workforce pathways, shaping the region’s company.
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So… Before we get into all of the tips and the cheat codes, right? I want to give you a little bit of insight about who employed Prince George’s is. We’re a quasi government nonprofit 501c3 nonprofit serving as the principal workforce development entity for Prince George’s County, Maryland.
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Um, as the workforce development entity for Prince George’s County government, and yes, you guys, I am reading off the screen. Epg serves as the staff.
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Fiscal agent and administrative agent of Prince George’s County Workforce Development Board and the entity managing and distributing the county’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA for short. I know a lot of you all are familiar with WIOA, right?
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And so, EPG, we’re an industry-leading workforce development service provider. We have about 10 plus workforce development programs, and we serve as the link or bridge between job seekers looking to begin.
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or change their careers and businesses looking for skilled workers to maintain to maintain competitiveness in a changing labor market.
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Our mission is to improve the local economy. By creating a demand-driven workforce system in Prince George’s County and workforce development programs that deliver qualified workers.
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to businesses, improves productivity of businesses, and provides job seekers with opportunities for careers in high school, in high demand or high growth industries. Hashtag, we are EPG. And so, had to get that out of the way.
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And so that’ll be the last time I’m literally reading off the screen, okay? Let’s jump into this great work right here. So we’re all workforce professionals, right? And so… The 80-20 rule, if you’re familiar with it.
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Um, ultimately, what I share with you today isn’t new.
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My guarantee is that 80% of the information we cover today is information you already know. It’s my job as a facilitator to help you put the puzzle pieces together and fill in the gaps with the remaining 20% of the information you’ll learn today.
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from me, and from your colleagues, because I know you guys are going to be sharing some great gems in the… in the chat as well.
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So let’s jump into this. This is the goal. Ultimately, when we’re dealing with why youth engagement matters. The whole purpose is to spark curiosity and to keep youth connected. Youth engagement creates the connection. Recruitment moves youth towards the opportunity.
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Successful programs intentionally designed both. And so effective youth engagement includes making sure that we’re creating relevant.
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an interactive experiences. We’re building authentic relationships with trusted adults right when we’re dealing with youth and young adults, providing exposure to careers, industries, and pathways. And the one thing we want to do, we want to meet.
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the youth and young adults where they are, whether they’re in school, whether they’re disconnected from school, whether they’re in the community spaces or on digital platforms.
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Before we log into some of the wonderful things that we’re doing at EPG through our youth workforce development programs. I want to check in with you all.
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Okay.
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What challenges have you seen in your local area related to youth engagement?
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throw it in the chat. I’m going to give you a couple of minutes. What issues? What challenges have you seen?
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related to youth engagement in your local area.
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transportation, attendance, lack of interest, attention span for sure. I’m sure some of you all can relate lack of participation and motivation, not motivated.
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follow-ups, support, recruitment of out-of-school youth. Oh my gosh, you guys are dropping them in! Unmotivated.
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not always patient with the process, yeah, because we have our processes when we’re dealing with federal funds, right? Communication.
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They’re hoping you can tell them what program to take and not willing to dig deep to find out what career path makes sense.
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empathetic employers. Hmm. Transportation. That was a repeat. Yeah, that is an issue. No sense of urgency.
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I actually just had that conversation this morning with my 14 year old and getting up out of there early this morning. No sense of urgency at all. Totally agree with you. Continue to drop them in the chat for sure. Totally agree. Um, I look at these as necessarily challenges, but opportunities.
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for us to improve how we engage this demographic specifically.
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So here’s some additional challenges across that I did some research across the the Us. Competing for youth attention. We’re literally we’re literally competing with social media.
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Mm-hmm.
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Short attention spans, digital entertainment, and other influences that shape the attention and interests of these individuals. Absolutely. Limited awareness.
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They don’t know, maybe their parents don’t know. Many people in their families are unfamiliar with workforce development programs or non-traditional career pathways. A disconnect between education and career preparation.
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Students often report that school doesn’t adequately prepare them for the workforce, but that’s where we come in, right? And then something y’all threw in the chat.
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uh, barriers to access and participation, structural barriers that limit participation, like transportation, right? And so, uh, transportation, income constraints, family responsibilities limit participation in workforce programs as well.
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And then also maintaining long-term engagement. Many youth programs successfully recruit participants, right? But struggle to maintain the engagement of keeping that youth or young adult connected to our programs. Now, these are really opportunities for workforce professionals like you and DIA.
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to engage youth and their families about workforce opportunities. It’s the perfect bridge.
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So, this is a snapshot, you guys, of how employee Prince George’s, how our youth programs are designed to move youth from interest.
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to impact. We create the bridge early. Our Youth Career Connections program, which serves in-school youth, creates the bridge early. And then our knowledge equals you success program, which we’ll jump in a little bit more, actually helps them to continue the journey. And so we always start with the end in mind when we are.
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uh, designing our program. Start with the internet in mind. Everything we do, we start backwards to ensure performance, outcomes are captured. The right partners are at the table.
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For example, in your local area, you may partner with the public library or your local community centers like here. We work and partner heavily with the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, or our local community centers. They’re always looking for ways to get.
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parents, students, and young adults into their centers. And they’re in every different municipality within our county, so we definitely partnered with them. And then you also want to partner with other workforce entities. The community college in your area, the public school system.
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Every different partner has their area of strength. Everybody has their area of expertise, so it’s important to have the right people at the table.
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The next one is to identify what captures the attention. Young people respond to programming that feels current.
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interactive and connected to their interest, not yours. Not what happened in 2002 that got you excited, or not when you were in high school in 1995, what got you motivated? We gotta connect with them today in 2026.
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Also, we want to build connection through relationships, just not through services, right? We want to talk about the importance of career coaches, uh, follow-up, mentorship, and all of that information. And then we want to make engagement experiential.
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This is where you can mention activities like your your field trips or behind the scenes tours or mentoring opportunities, or your summer employment opportunities, things to bring them in incentives, stipends, things of that nature. And then you want to connect.
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Every activity. to to a clear next step.
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Our engagement must lead somewhere, right? So whether we’re leading them to a survey to get their feedback, or whether we’re collecting their contact information to share upcoming opportunities, that’s where we want to make sure that we are.
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reaching them. The goal is not just participation. The goal is to activate them to want to stay connected to what we are doing. So let’s jump ahead.
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And we’re going to start with our knowledge equals you success program, or KEIS for short.
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This program is specifically for young adults 18 to 24, who are disconnected from education and looking for access to employment opportunities, career coaching is provided, occupational skills training, scholarships may be available.
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Supportive services are available to these young adults as well to get to overcome barriers such as transportation, professional attire, or what may be needed. And as you see the different phases of our program outline there, that’s a very high level.
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overview of what’s happened in that… in our young adult program. A big part of what we do in our keys program is to cultivate relationships. We’re creating a family. We’re creating individuals that need each other.
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A support system. We want to make sure that our staff, we’re keeping our word so that these young adults really want to work with us and follow up and trust what we say.
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Um, and so a part of that is we’re providing one-on-one coaching, mentorship. We have our Keys to Elevation, which is our career readiness boot camp. And a part of that is a way that we build rapport and cultivate relationships.
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throughout our programs. Now, engagement. How do we get these young adults into our programs? We’re most definitely utilizing social media. We’re also utilizing flyers. I’m sure you are doing that in your local area. But do you see at the top left corner of every flyer example up here? These are neighborhoods within Prince George’s County.
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We are working and partnering with the different municipalities within Prince George’s County so that we can target specific neighborhoods that may meet the criteria of our eligibility for our programming. So you see, we have New Carrollton residents, opportunity awaits.
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Laurel residents, opportunity awaits! Brentwood residents, opportunity awaits. So as we’re hitting the street and meeting the streets with outreach materials, we’re making sure that we are targeting specific areas within our county.
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All right. I think I’m going to speed up a little faster because I feel like time is getting ahead of us. So I want to jump into a and highlight a Java resource fair in partnership with our local library.
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that we did most recently. Tune in for a second.
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Hi, my name is Asia. Um, I joined Keys maybe about 6 months ago. I now have my CompTIA ITF Plus and my A+ certificate, and now they are helping me get into an entry-level career job. My name is Jimmy Edme. Glad to be here. Today, I learned that there are many possibilities. As long as you put your mind to it and you’re devoted.
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My name Lorenzo. I’m CompTIA certified. It’s a very good program. A lot of opportunities, uh, opened a lot of doors, meet a lot of people, a lot of new people to the people around me. I didn’t know them, but now I know them. They real good people, too, and told me a lot. So, it’s a very good program. And there you have it. This is the Keys.
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Job and Resource Fair, where we have the keys to success and we are invested in the total you.
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I got cheese, keys! Hello, I’m Shayla, I’m here with the Keys Elevation Program. So I’ve actually started interning with Community Tech through them. There, I’ve been learning to how to develop apps and how to integrate AI with it. So today we’re here with a career field.
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So we’re here networking, getting more familiar with the different businesses and opportunities that’s out there for us, because there’s endless opportunities. We just have to know about them. Also, it’s about who you know, and that what you know, so we’re learning, getting connected with more people.
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Looking to further my career.
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All right. Thanks for tuning in, you guys. And so that is the gist of our knowledge equals you success program that targets specifically 18 to 24 year olds. Now we’re going to roll over to our in-school youth program, which is our youth career connections.
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program. What does YCC actually do? We expose… explore and equipped. So we expose youth to possibilities. We explore interests through hands-on experiences. We equip them with the skills, tools, and support needed for next steps. And so, as you see here, these are some of the different areas in which we focus on.
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Based on the different grade levels. And so we have 50 career coaches that are across Prince George’s County Public Schools, working specifically with sixth through 12th graders, providing them exploration and access to different opportunities. I’m going to show you this quick video about what the real work looks like.
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What’s up, Prince George’s County? It’s Jennifer Ricks, Director, Youth Services, and I want to tell you about a big change that’s happening here in our home county and our state. The Blueprint for Maryland’s future is landmark legislation that’s going to transform education right here in the state of Maryland.
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We’re calling it Youth Career Connection. Employ Prince George’s has partnered with Prince George’s County Public Schools.
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Prince George’s Community College to support 6-12th grade students with opportunities to explore their interests and identify career options that match their goals and.
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Let’s be real, everyone has different interests. The Youth Career Connections program puts career coaches in schools to help students find a career pathway based on those interests. We’ll be offering specific activities, including field trips, career days, career mentors, and advisors to help each student find their next step.
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high school, everyone’s future is different. Let’s help our youth and young adults define theirs.
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And so you all, this is an engagement tool that we utilize when we are meeting new partners.
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Um, when we are trying to introduce ourselves to the schools that we’re working at so that they have an idea of the partnership that we have. This is a snapshot of some additional engagement opportunities where our career coaches in their specified locations at their high school, they put up these notifications.
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on how students can connect with them, whether that is utilizing that you see if you scan that QR code, it’ll take them to a place where they can actually set up an appointment, and their contact information is available so that students know how to find their career coach at their specified school.
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We also have our mobile career exploration Lab coming this spring. This lab has access to a Cpr interactive simulator, augmented reality medical table, interactive heart model.
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Construction activities focusing on carpentry or basic toolkit, electrical wiring simulator, career exploration stations, IT cybersecurity exploration. We have, I think there are two PC gaming chairs and laptops available.
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Heavy equipment, and it’s also a driving simulator. And then there’s drafting or CAD station so that individuals can get a snapshot of how to design buildings or create construction, construction plans. And so a part of this is a way that we plan to engage students across Prince George’s County.
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is to be able to take this hub to different schools or to different events that we have. So students and young adults can get really, real hands-on experience and career exploration as far as getting connected to different industries.
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That was another snapshot of the pod there for you all.
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All right, coming this spring. Now, we also facilitate career takeovers, which really are industry focused events in which we house about our goal is always anywhere between 500 plus individuals. These activities are grade level focused.
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We pull in the community, we have parent engagement activities that happen as well so that parents know how to maneuver and gain access for their students or young adults. And so I’m just going to move right along so that you can see a snapshot of one of our events that we did not so long ago.
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All these people are here for you. Come and get employed today, all right? This is the DMV Zone. I’m Joe Clare, 707007-BOP.
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Take over.
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And so as you saw that little snippet right there, we had employer partners there to engage. This was open to the public. And so we partnered with the public school system. We had a fashion show there to show students and young adults what appropriate attire looks like for them.
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As they’re entering the workforce. Really awesome time and an awesome experience for youth and young adults who are in transition, looking for their next steps and opportunities.
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All right, next up on your screen, this may be something that you might be familiar with. Anybody heard of Road Trip Nation?
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Road Trip Nation is a national career exploration platform that uses real stories and videos to expose young adults to different career pathways, whether that’s college certifications, apprenticeships, and entrepreneurship. And so, through our partnership, we launched paths.
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across Prince George’s County, where 3 road trippers explore careers right here locally in the DMV. They created 220 to 25 min videos highlighting professionals, businesses, and opportunities across the county. We also hosted a screening to launch this event.
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If they help you?
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Hey, what’s up?
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And then we had the opportunity to take this tour to 10 different schools across Prince George’s County so that they could actually see the the mobile, the… Excuse me, the, um, the mobile unit that they travel across to do the tours, and it was really a great opportunity. This is also a great engagement tool for our career coaches who are in the schools. They’re able to utilize the video.
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They got… they got all this stuff straight. You should be going with questions.
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In order to, uh, if you could put yourself on mute, I’m so sorry. I think it sounds like we’re competing. Thank you. We hosted a screening and networking event to bring this to life. And so, as I was saying, we.
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The tour visited 10 different schools, middle and high schools, to expose students to this opportunity. So now we have these videos that career coaches can use to pretty much share the great opportunities of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship.
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Next up, you see our From Books to Boss Moves. We curate actually took a survey and had meetings with our business advisory Council members who are employer partners across Prince George’s County and the DMV to get feedback on different career pathways and what they look like.
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As that was created, there were career pathway books that were generated for our adult customers, but we wanted to take that and make it more relatable. And so what you see on your screen right now are our career pathways maps created to engage students and young adults.
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What we do is we partner with the public school system, and we actually hang these up on the different classrooms across the public school system. So that students can see, why do I need math? Why do I need science? Well, if you want to fly a drone, you’re going to need math because you need some technical skills.
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And so these are great tools that we utilize to engage students so that they understand why they take the classes that they take. And we all have felt that way when we were in school. Why do I have to take this math class? Why do I need to take this English class? This is why, because it leads to these job opportunities, right?
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Okay. Rolling through, and we’re we’re almost at the time where we are supposed to close this out. So these are some tools that actually work. You all. You always want to make sure that you design with the end in mind.
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Every youth activity should connect to our performance outcomes. All of you all have performance outcomes in which we have to meet. So make sure you design your… you’re designing things to make sure that you’re successful with your outcomes.
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You want to meet youth where they are, use language, formats, and engagement methods that feel relevant and accessible. Create multiple on-wraps. Every young person that enters through the door, that every young person does not, sorry, enter through the same door.
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Offer exposure, coaching, training, and work-based options. and then use partnerships strategically. I spoke earlier about having the right partners at the table, whether that’s schools, employers, community organizations, and training providers. They all ultimately strengthen the engagement.
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And then I’d like to say engagement must be sustained. One great event. It’s not enough.
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Young people need continuum or touch points or support, or know that we are here as a resource, that we don’t stop after that one event.
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So I would like to roll over to our next slide. And Kim, I know we may not have time for questions. Please let me know.
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Do we?
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Yeah. No, we do. We have a… we have a couple more minutes, and it looks like we have a few questions in. So if anybody wants to go ahead and put another question in the chat box, we’ll get to those. But one question, Jennifer, that Crystal asked is, is WIOA the only funding that you use for these programs?
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Absolutely not. Wioa is not the only funding that we receive. We have several different funding streams that we receive through Employee Prince George’s that allows us to expand our services that we provide typically outside of WIOA funding. Great question.
00:28:33.000 –> 00:28:43.000
Awesome. Thank you. If, Crystal, if you had a follow up question, you can definitely put that in. And then Jermaine asked Road Trip Nation, is that a national service?
00:28:43.000 –> 00:28:55.000
Yes. Road Trip Nations creates videos across the US, and they work with several different partners to create videos specifically for certain areas. Absolutely.
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All right. And it looks like one last question is asking if you can share the career pathway map flyer slide. So it’s in the slide deck, right? So we’ll be sharing. Cindy will be sharing that entire slide deck, so you will have access to that.
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Yes.
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Absolutely, you will. And then any other questions we didn’t get to, I’ll make sure that I partner with Kim to make sure that we do answer your questions that may be in the chat as well.
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Okay, and it looks like one more question just came in. This is a good question, because it was one of my questions, too. But are the books to Boss materials available to purchase?
00:29:25.000 –> 00:29:30.000
Okay.
00:29:30.000 –> 00:29:31.000
Or can we have access to those, or?
00:29:31.000 –> 00:29:45.000
Great question. You know what? You all are putting ideas in my mind because that is not something we explored. This is something that we curated specifically for you career connections, our programs. And so we do not have them available for purchase.
00:29:45.000 –> 00:29:46.000
But Kim, I’m having an idea here. Uh-huh.
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Oh, I mean, I know a light bulb moment, light bulb moment. Erica, I see Erica asked where the material is going to be posted. So Erica, I will be sending you all an email by the end of the week so you’ll get it to your email, but it will also be on the NAWD website under digital learning. So you’ll be able to access it there as well.
00:30:17.000 –> 00:30:18.000
Thank you so much, Kim. Thank you, everyone.
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All right, Jennifer, thank you so much. We appreciate you. You’re always, always such a wealth of information and inspiration, so we appreciate you for joining us for our March 30 Minutes of Excellence, and also to all of you, thank you for taking 30 minutes out of your day to join us to continue to grow and to grow with this field of workforce development. So we appreciate you all as well.
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Alright, so we are right on time, so appreciate you all. Have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday, and we look forward to seeing you all real soon.
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Bye-by
