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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Health Care

They are talking about this topic: Educational Partnerships

 

The quotes below are about this issue:
Employers express concern that many K-12 students do not adequately understand career options in the health care field. They believe there is a need for higher education and businesses to support the K-12 system in improving career counseling efforts.

Employer Quote Region
"You know the other reality is—and I have spent a lot of time in K-12—and K-12's not here in this room; they're not a part of this conversation. That's where those thoughts, ideas and beliefs are developed. I just asked industry and post-secondary education, shouldn't we be in that classroom with secondary education making sure that young people understand what reality is?" Southeast
"I want to follow up on the comment about the K-12. We just called a school principal and the social worker that helps the students with their career development, and they're totally unaware that in long-term care we can actually reimburse people as they move from nurse's aide to LPN and as they go to school to become an RN. The state reimburses us to pay for that education. I think there is a huge need to communicate to our education system the opportunities." Southeast
"I just want to point out that once you get them at the school, there are some things you can do with them, but there are a whole lot of people wandering in the wilderness that aren't sure of where they're going to end up." Southeast
"We talk about K-12 and getting them introduced to what is out there in health care, but all of these new privacy things have come up. We used to have family members of middle-school kids calling and saying, 'My child is showing an interest in lab, can they come take a look?' And we'd say, 'Well, sure they can come and take a look.' Now that just isn't happening. If there could be a creative way on a national level—I know our organizations were saying you need to get out there and tell people what this is—but until there is something formalized on a nationwide level from the colleges or something to hit these students and create some films to go into schools...If the high schools aren't responding to it, or aren't looking for it—asking for you to come in—then we need to be going to them." Southeast
"We're talking about the students and their reality check of what they're getting into. We find that a lot of students come to us with their background being CSI, House, and Desperate Housewives—this influences their vision of what these careers are about. They have severe culture shock when they realize that they might have to get their hands dirty and it actually is work. One of the things that we've been doing on our sites as part of a summer project is that we have our students who have recently graduated—since they all have iPhones and iPads—to do some little video vignettes of, 'This is my day. This is what I do.' And they will get clearance from their facility for us to have those videos as part of our recruiting portion for that. We started partially with a Department of Labor grant that was given to [MnSCU college] for doing some of those things for the students because they really have a very pop-culture idea of what health care is all about—and laboratory in particular. They didn't really have a clue. They thought they were all going to walk in and instantly become CSIs. And that you could wear high heels to the crime scene. They think that's reality. We need to reach out and give them the real picture because they really don't have it." Southeast
"I think the Youth Scrubs Camp that [MnSCU college] puts on for southeastern Minnesota is a wonderful opportunity to expose them to the fact that there's still a cool factor, and it gets kids interested in looking at health occupations." Southeast
"Our clinic has worked very hard in the last 11 years to develop career education programs to reach out to high school students. If there's anybody who's interested in learning more about what we have done—what we do and what we plan to do—we are more than willing to share. We would love to give away our program guidelines to help you work with the privacy issues and other issues because there is a way to deal with that. And the Scrubs Camp is an example of something out there that the community partners with. There are a lot of things out there so it's a matter of making sure everyone is aware of it." Southeast
"Well, from a high school perspective and out of the pipeline, it's also very helpful when employers and educators at that level can get together so that students at an early age can really develop their awareness of some of these expectations. You can plant those seeds, they'll build, and they'll grow. I just think sometimes when you're doing it a bit later on that it's harder." Southeast
"We're starting to work with a local high school about trying to do some type of youth leadership or youth program, just to have another way to help them become aware of health care careers so that they're thinking about it." Southeast