A healthcare opportunities showcase going on Friday in two area schools will attempt to connect students with possible career paths for them in the community.
The healthcare showcase will be in Galesburg High School from 10:00 a.m. to noon, and at ROWVA High School from 1 to 2:30 p.m.
Created by the Knox County Area partnership for Economic Development, Talent Connect Knox County is a coordinated, year-round multi-channel marketing initiative designed to influence area youth to pursue Career Technical Education.
KCAP President Ken Springer says that the whole goal of the initiative is to turbo charge the community’s core technical education.
“What we’re doing with this marketing initiative is: we’re just really trying to step on the gas pedal and really bump up the interest level of the kids. This is a long-term play for the community,” Springer told WGIL. “This is something that we’re putting into place now that’s really going to start bearing fruit a couple years down the road. KCAP feels that this is something that we really need to do.”
Specifically in areas that a community has identified as core growth industries, which have been identified in Knox County as advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation.
TCKC hopes to make careers in those three fields appeal to high school students through special events and strategic marketing plans. Their goal is to fill up the area high school and community college training programs for these three industries to maximum capacity.
Springer says that “the key thing we’re really driving at with Talent Connect is we want to make sure that every student that goes through our five school districts in this county understand that there are employers right now that need workers in fields – that are frankly very cool and very interesting.”
The goals of TCKC is to publicize the workforce needs, create a pool of industry speakers to visit classrooms and mix with students, organize job shadow experiences and internship or summer work opportunities.
Taylor Ischman, the Director of Communications for KCAP, says that Friday’s healthcare industry showcase will show eight healthcare industry employers.
“They’ll just be demonstrating all the cool aspects of the healthcare industry and it’s really a hands-on experience for the students. It’s not just them coming to get a piece of paper and they can go learn more about it later,” said Ischman. “They can try and test someone’s vitals or they can do a CPR simulation with a dummy that some people are bringing, so it’s some really cool stuff.”
Ischman says the list of healthcare employers that will be attending include: Cottage and OSF hospitals, Rosewood Care Center, GHAS, and the Knox County Health Center.
Springer adds that each year they want to do one showcase for each of the three targeted industries and to rotate between all five of the school districts in the county.
