At one time, Joshua Laguerre wanted to be a registered nurse – at least that’s what his parents told him he should do.
But thanks in part to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training’s Youth Work Force Development System and an affiliated Lifespan Youth Employment Program, Laguerre, 21, feels like he has found his calling.
“Now I want to be a health care executive,” he said recently.
Why? Because he was able to try several jobs as part of the Lifespan program, nine-week paid summer assignments within the hospital network for 16- to 19-year-olds in which Laguerre participated for several years.
He spent one summer in a nursing unit. Last year, he assisted Brandon Mendon, Lifespan’s senior vice president of human resources.
“It was the exposure,” Laguerre explained recently. “I learned what I liked; I learned that I wanted to wear a tie to work; I learned that just because that’s what you’re told to do, it’s not necessarily what you’re meant to do.” Now he plans to study business and economics, rather than nursing, in college.
State labor officials say Laguerre is just one of thousands of Rhode Island youngsters who have benefited from an expanded Youth Work Force Development program that has gone from assisting just 320 teens and young adults annually in recent years to more than 3,000 this year.
Dozens of youngsters ages 14 to 24 who received assistance from the RIDLT program in finding summer work gathered at the Buttonwoods Community Center in Warwick on Aug. 14 in a sort of end-of-season review of how they spent their summer vacation.
One group of teens spent seven weeks learning at minimum wage how to build a skiff in a partnership among the RIDLT, the youth development agency My Turn Inc. and the International Yacht Restoration School. The hope is that some of the participants would be interested in entering the growing marine trades industry.
Another 10 youngsters were assigned to Riverzedge, a youth-development arts program in Woonsocket, for seven weeks and were paid to produce works of art.
Others, such as Jerome Robinson, 14, of Pawtucket, earned minimum wage working with the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship assembling detailed startup business plans. Robinson’s proposal for a barber shop was good enough to qualify for a regional competition.
Robinson never thought of opening his own business before, but he said the NFTE program – in partnership with My Turn – showed him that it is more than possible. “I thought it was pretty easy,” he said of research and writing his proposal.
Experiences such as Robinson’s illustrate the importance of the youth work force program, according to Lori Norris, the department’s chief of statewide services.
“It’s through these partnerships youth are able to safely explore a variety of occupations while learning more about the work … and about themselves,” Norris said at the Aug. 14 event.
The RIDLT program has come a long way in a short time.
In 2006 the Governor’s Workforce Board decided to contribute $2 million to the program amid growing complaints from the business community that high school graduates and some college graduates were leaving school not prepared for the workplace.
That money was added to the $1.3 million from the federal Workforce Investment Act that was earmarked for needy youth.
Previously there were eight organizations partnered with the department. Now there are more than 30. Last year there was only one youth center in Rhode Island providing job-searching assistance, workplace preparedness and training. Now there are 13.
‘There are so many thousands of young people in Rhode Island who could really benefit from services that would connect them to work and put them on a lifelong pathway to finding success,” RIDLT Director Sandra M. Powell said. •
