A summer well spent at Lifespan youth program

ETERNAL SUMMER: Alexis Devine, head of Lifespan's youth-development program, with recent graduate Gianny Munoz in his new workspace at Rhode Island Hospital. / PBN PHOTO/MARK S. MURPHY
ETERNAL SUMMER: Alexis Devine, head of Lifespan's youth-development program, with recent graduate Gianny Munoz in his new workspace at Rhode Island Hospital. / PBN PHOTO/MARK S. MURPHY

When the 93 graduates of Lifespan’s 2012 Summer Youth Employment Program went onstage to receive their certificates on Aug. 17 at the Gerry House on the Rhode Island Hospital campus, there were almost double that number of family, friends and mentors in the audience, cheering on their accomplishment.
More than just a celebration, the event marked the entrance of young people through an all too often hard-to-open door: the job market, with training and skills for a potential a career in the health care sector.
“We have the responsibility to invest in young people as the future workforce,” said Alexis Devine, the Youth Development Coordinator with Lifespan Workforce Development, who has been coordinating the summer program since 2004. “The program is an eight-week job interview. There are not many opportunities for employment right now, so we really want to teach what the employer is looking for. There are a lot of fundamental expectations that they have to meet,” she said.
Devine praised the leadership of Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest private employer, with a workforce of more than 12,000, for investing in the program. “We are very fortunate at Lifespan. Our leadership and our colleagues share the same beliefs [about the importance of investing in opportunities for young people],” she said. “I’ve watched these jobs change lives dramatically.”
Over the last eight years, more than 100 graduates of the programs have been hired within the Lifespan hospital network, which includes Rhode Island Hospital, The Miriam Hospital and Newport Hospital.
One of the newest hires from the 2012 Summer Youth Employment program is Gianny Munoz, who just turned 20. He is now working as a per-diem employee in the Patient Transport Department at Rhode Island Hospital. “It’s hands on. I get to see patients, it’s very communicative,” he said, describing his job helping to transport patients. “I get to go all around the hospital.” Among the skills Munoz said he learned was how to act in a professional manner, with a proper handshake, and eye contact when talking with someone, and the importance of protecting and respecting a patient’s privacy. The job, he said, talking in the Rhode Island Hospital cafeteria before his shift, “is going to give me a foot in the door inside the hospital. I want to go to school for nursing. I plan to go to CCRI first, and then I can transfer out.”
The summer program, Munoz continued, “opened your mind in different ways, it makes you see things for what’s important.”
At the graduation ceremony, Betty Ferreia, the manager of Patient Transport at Rhode Island Hospital, praised the young people for their willingness to accept the challenge and stick with it, with 100 percent – 93 out of 93 participants – completing the program. “Only you can choose your attitude,” she said. “No job in health care is insignificant. We may meet again when you become my doctor or my nurse,” she added. “Take good care of me.”
Rick Brooks, the executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Board, also spoke at the ceremony, sharing the recipe for success in finding a job. “What are employers looking for in employees?” he asked, and answered: “The three E’s – education, experience and enthusiasm.” As part of the summer jobs program, Brooks continued, “you got all of those.” Brandon Melton, senior vice president of human resources at Lifespan, thanked all the participants in the program, saying: “It’s been our privilege to work with you all.”
For Devine, who co-founded and has shepherded the program at Lifespan, the experience has taught her to trust in the capabilities of young people. “I have really learned to believe in the ability of young people,” she said. “They have a lot more talent and skills than I think they get credit for. Given the opportunity, they are incredibly capable.”
With many of the young people Devine has worked with, she continued, regardless of the communities they are from, they are all facing some kind of challenge in their lives. “It’s hard,” she said. “A lot of them have to overcome many barriers to access opportunities, and to sustain them.”
But, given the right skills, the right social environment and the correct caring professional with a consistent belief in them, they will succeed. “They’re really able to do anything we ask them to do,” she said.
Munoz called the program “a step forward” in his life. “At first, you go into the program, not knowing anybody, feeling uncomfortable,” he said. By the end, he continued, he had become more comfortable speaking in public, and he had learned to face problems directly.
Sponsors and community partners of the Lifespan Summer Youth Employment Program included Textron, Workforce Solutions of Providence/Cranston, William M. Davies Jr. Career & Technical High School, the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, the Governor’s Workforce Board, Coastline EAP, the Lifespan Learning Institute, Goodwill Industries, Learning for Life, and Rhode Island YouthWORKS411. •

No posts to display