Partner4Work’s new Career Ready Allegheny website has something for everyone with an interest in connecting our region’s youth to opportunities for career learning.
Launched in September, the site offers employers options for connecting with schools and young talent as well as resources for structuring work-based learning experiences. It also puts the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s career learning requirements at educators’ fingertips and provides tools for helping students fulfill them.
Students themselves can look to the site for resources and opportunities, such as job-shadowing, that satisfy career learning standards, or for experiences that count toward graduation requirements under Act 158, which recognizes certain work-based learning exposures, such as internships, as alternatives to passing standardized tests.
“We wanted to put everything is in one place,” said Jennifer Peedin, Partner4Work’s Program Manager for School Age Youth. “We tried to make this kind of a one-stop shop when it comes to work-based learning.”
Both employers and schools can build profiles on the site and connect. Employers, for example, can open accounts and contact Peedin to post internships, work-study opportunities, service-learning projects, or other career-learning experiences they want to offer students. They also can post events, make themselves available to provide school speakers, host panel discussions, or work in partnership with educators to create other career learning opportunities. Additionally, Career Ready Allegheny provides primers for employers who might need tips on planning worksite visits and other interactions with students.
Among other things, educators might look to the site for ready-made templates such as timesheets for students to track their career learning activities or guides to different kinds of state-recognized career learning experiences, such as job-shadows. The guides not only spell out state requirements but provide “how-to” information for making the most of the experiences and documenting them.
The website is still under construction, with videos and working documents coming soon for students. Even now, however, students can look for opportunities and use a couple of assessment tools for identifying careers of interest. They’ll also find links to various organizations that provide resources for career exploration, such as the Consortium’s Career Journeys video library.
“Those are all things that we want students have access to so they have ownership and power when it comes to exploring career paths and figuring out what is their next move,” said Peedin.
