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The Boys & Girls Club of Greater Haverhill and the Haverhill Public-Private Partnership, known as HP3 for short, join forces next Wednesday to launch a new workforce development program for high school students.
Called “The Bridge,” meaning Building Relationships & Integrating Dynamic Growth Experiences, Club, the program will span five months and is designed to help students discover their interests and skills through assessments, living wage discussions, visits from career representatives and exposure trips to local businesses and schools. It begins Wednesday, Jan. 10, with 13 students ranging in age from 13 to 18. Recently appearing on WHAV’s “Win for Breakfast” program was Boys and Girls Club of Greater Haverhill Executive Director Javier Bristol, who says the project even pays a small stipend while members participate.
“It will be a program that’s a five-month program that will be a flexible schedule where, essentially, if you complete it at the end of it you will have built up some job skills and some tools that will prepare you for the future workforce.”
Bristol says participating members will learn interview skills and build a resume.
In a separate appearance over WHAV, HP3 Director Allison Heartquist spoke about the program’s involvement with a company called Transfr VR that will give members an experience unavailable years ago
“So, the career exploration component—say the student is interested in being a nurse or interested in welding, something like that, they can put on these headsets and participate, virtually, in a doctor’s office or an operating room or in a manufacturing environment or car crash, whatever it is. So, they actually get to experience, for a few minutes, what it would be like.”
The Bridge Club will also include shadowing opportunities, financial workshops and professional development. Bristol says the program will help build networks between high school, local colleges and the business community and is aimed at creating a seamless transition to a successful life after high school.
This initiative is part of Congresswoman Lori Trahan’s Boys & Girls Clubs Build Better Workforces community project, which aims to provide meaningful workforce development opportunities for young adults from low-income backgrounds.
There’s more at haverhillbgc.org.