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New program aims to equip youth for success in the workforce

NYSSA – A program to teach youth key skills to help navigate the local and regional workforce is slated this month at the Nyssa Christian Fellowship Church.

       The three-day, hands-on Skill Up For Life training sessions will be held from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 12, Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, at the Nyssa church.

       The program is aimed at youth between 7th and 12th grade and is designed to allow students to earn professional employment certificates in such areas as suicide prevention and CPR.

       The program is spearheaded by the Oregon State University Extension Office in Ontario with support from a variety of local agencies including the Malheur Education Service District.

       “It is real world experience. It is not an ongoing 12-week course but a very intensive action-oriented approach,” said Barbara Brody, associate professor of practice, family & community health for the OSU Extension Office.

       Along with certificates in suicide prevention and CPR, students can secure professional endorsements in childcare – dubbed Safe Sitter – and First Aid. Participants can also secure a valid food handler’s card.

       Each of the certificates offered fits a growing need in Malheur County, said Brody.

       “Malheur County is a childcare desert. The certification to provide childcare is a workforce development need in the community. It fills that gap,” said Brody.

       Brody said a CPR/first aide certificate is important because of its flexibility.

       “They can get certified and then go to work at a pool or in other summer programs or childcare places,” she said.

       A food handler’s card is also a key tool for young people who seek to enter the workforce, said Brody.

       The Skill Up For Life program can trace its roots to a broader, community-wide effort devised to tackle illegal narcotic use in Malheur County. The federal funding for the effort derives from a grant through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program. Malheur County is part of the Oregon-Idaho HIDTA. A HIDTA is an area – usually a geographic location – where large amounts of illegal drugs are transported or distributed.

       The program is part of an “upstream prevention” strategy against drug abuse, said Nickie Shira, Malheur ESD’s director of Frontier STEM Hub.

       The initial stages of the program included a community conversation held in 2023 to address substance abuse and behavioral health prevention among youth, said Brody.

       “Adults came forward and said we need a youth engagement program,” said Brody.

The community sessions triggered a report that helped the extension office develop a plan to conduct a listening session of more than 20 youth from across the county last spring. The listening session aimed to find out what young people wanted in terms of recreation, employment and other tools to become self-sufficient.

       “We heard that kids want safe places for themselves and their siblings and places where they can be active and have opportunities to engage with their peers and learn,” said Shira.

       Shira said the listening session also showed youth “wanted opportunities to develop skills to help them move into the workforce.”

       The first Skill Up For Life session was held in Ontario during the past summer, said Brody. Brody, along OSU Extension family and community health intern Yoland Diaz, are also building a broader curriculum for the Skill Up For Life program that can be easily exported to school districts.

       “This is really taking the voice of youth into workforce development,” said Brody.

Workforce development among youth is a crucial, but often unrecognized, element to curbing illegal narcotic use.

       According to a May 2020 American Public Health Association report, job skills training “can be an important service component for reducing substance misuse and improving employment outcomes among youths with economic disadvantages and employment barriers.”

       The Skill Up For Life program is a good one, said Travis Johnson, Malheur County sheriff.

       “Anytime you are engaging youth and working with them and building relationships it potentially has a big impact in a lot of ways, including lowering (illegal) drug use,” he said.

For more information, contact Brody at 541-881-1419.