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Training provides young adults with valuable real world experiences
Heather Meier
When Christina Hicks and Camille Saxton signed up for the Goodwill Skills Trainings Employment Preparation Services program they were certain of one thing — they didn’t want to spend their summer break working fast food like most of their friends.
“We were looking for something that’s more productive to our future,” Hicks said.
She’ll be starting her senior year at Rogers High School in the fall but when she goes to college she plans to major in child psychology. Saxton has two more years left at Rogers but wants to follow a similar plan, eventually becoming a pediatrician.
They don’t know yet what summer job they may be assigned to through the program but they are keeping their fingers crossed it will have something to do with children.
“I’m more excited than anything,” Hicks said.
Kevin Kildun, the summer program coordinator, said that while the program is intended to target at-risk young adults, it isn’t exclusive. The main goal is to give teens like Hick and Saxton guidance as they enter the work force for the first time. Each summer, about 35 young adults between 16 and 24 are placed in jobs with Metro Parks, the Boys and Girls Club and the Puyallup Youth Investment Center’s greenhouse.
“We’re really trying to support them,” Kildun said.
The jobs are 20 hours a week, Monday through Thursday. Friday is a mandatory day to gather together as a group. Some Fridays they will receive leadership training where they will get help with their resumes, learn conflict resolution and take a money management class. Other Fridays are spent on field trips.
The first one will be a ropes course where they will learn to bond together and further develop skills needed to succeed in the business world. Other field trips will take them to Microsoft and Clover Park Technical College.
“Their eyes are already past graduation,” Kildun explain.
Some of the young adults will head to college after graduation but others will find a job right away; all, he said, need to know how to behave like good employees. For that reason the program has a two strikes and you’re out policy. If one of the young adults skips work or shows up late twice during the program, they are kicked out.
“This isn’t summer camp,” he said. “This is a summer job.”
Most of the participants take it very seriously, though. In fact, several of them wanted work so they could help support their family.
“And that’s very admirable,” he said.
Tyler Eidson, day camp coordinator for Puyallup Parks and Recreation, expects his employees to treat their counselor jobs with the same seriousness.
“We love outgoing personalities but that’s not the most important thing,” he said, explaining that responsibility is by far the most significant part.
That goes for the counselors, who are typically college-aged, and the counselors-in-training, who are between 12 and 15.
“We expect them to approach this as a job,” he said.
But it works out well for the CITs. If they come back year after year, parks and rec staff can see them grow and mature. Eventually, the CITs may be able to work themselves into one of the coveted counselor positions.
“It’s a good job for kids,” said Ralph Dannenberg, parks and rec director.
It’s important, though, for teens and tweens to be aware of the time commitment it takes, he said. If they are planning a five-week vacation over a 10-week summer break, they wouldn’t have enough time to spend with the day camps. However, parks and rec can usually work around a weeklong trip.
They also need to be well aware of the responsibility that goes along with being a counselor, he said.
Alaina Johnson knows all too well what’s expected of her as a counselor. Her mother is a site director for Sumner/Bonney Lake Recreation Department, so Johnson spent a lot of her summers volunteering at the day camps.
A few days after she turned 16 last summer, she was encouraged to become a counselor. It was on her first day that one of the girls she was responsible for went into diabetic shock. The girl told Johnson she would need to have her insulin shot administered for her.
“I was really freaked out,” Johnson said. “I though’ Oh my gosh, what if I fail?’”
But she didn’t and went on to have the girl in her group week after week.
She can’t wait to get back into the swing of summer.
“I am so excited to do this,” she said.