Health Apprenticeship Learning Series
This series of workshops will provide insight into the need for apprenticeship models in health care professions. It kicked off in March of 2021 and continues through October 2021.
Session 1: The Case for Healthcare Apprenticeships
In this session, Adele Burnes, Regional Director of Apprenticeships, Bay Area Community College Consortium shared about the opportunity of apprenticeship both for educators, students and industry. And, Linda Mount, Strategic Business Advisor, Division of Apprenticeship Standards, shared about existing apprenticeship programs in Healthcare and the emerging opportunities in this space.
Session 2: Launching an Apprenticeship Program in Healthcare at Community Colleges
Intrigued by apprenticeship, but trying to figure out where to start? We learned from Cara Miyasaki, Department Chair, Dental Assisting Program, Foothill College who has recently launched a Dental Assisting Apprenticeship Program at Foothill College. Chris Allen, Dean of Apprenticeship Programs and Phuong Tran, Apprenticeship Coordinator at Foothill kicked off the conversations with some of the important practicalities of launching an apprenticeship, and then we dove into the specifics of the Dental Assisting Apprenticeship. We learned about the first steps in getting started, mechanics of designing the courses for the RSI, registering with DAS and launching recruitment.
Session 3: Running a Healthcare Apprenticeship Program
In this session we learned about how to launch and run a healthcare apprenticeship program from folks who are successfully running one of the first ever Licensed Vocational Nurse to Registered Nurse Apprenticeship Program in civil service. The program is a collaboration between California Correctional Health Care Services, SEIU Local 1000, and 3 community colleges in the region, including Sacramento City College, Riverside City College and San Joaquin Delta College. We will have presentations from:
- Hakam Jabar, Success Coordinator, SEIU Local 1000
- Carel Mountain, Director of Nursing at Sacramento City College,
- Kimberly Reimer and Tammy Vanthul, Nursing Faculty at Riverside City College
Session 4: Emerging Opportunities for Healthcare Apprenticeship Programs at Community Colleges
This was a roundtable of new and emerging apprenticeship programs in Health in the CA Community Colleges. These programs are all at different stages of launching and offer examples of what is possible:
- Community Health Worker Apprentice, LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network with Lilia Aguirre and Frank Castanos, Victor Valley College
- Optician Apprentice, CA State Society of Opticians with Ruby Garcia, Executive Director
- Medical Assistant Apprentice, CLICK Apprenticeship Program with Monika Bell, Monterey Peninsula College
Session 5: Building and Expanding Apprenticeship in Healthcare
In this session we learned from one of the largest healthcare labor-management training programs for incumbent workers in CA; the SEIU UHW-West Joint Employer Education Fund Apprenticeship Programs includes apprenticeships in 7 different health occupations ranging from Hospital Coder to Surgical Technician and Medical Assisting. The organization builds apprenticeship programs with many of the major employers in healthcare including Kaiser, Dignity Health and El Camino Health. We learned about how they have launched and how they are seeking to work more with educational partners to scale. Presenters from SEIU UHW-West Joint Employer Education Fund include:
- Rebecca Hanson, Executive Director
- Patrice Madu, Director of Programs
- Tarik Scott, Director, External Relations