Through the Health Careers for Youth (HCFY) program, Sociedad Latina collaborates with medical hospitals and health centers in the Boston area to provide youth with the opportunity to explore careers in the health care industry through paid internships at participating institutions. HCFY is a year-round employment and training program for youth ages 16-21 that offers a combination of direct work experience, career exploration, job readiness and personal development workshops and is designed to increase career awareness and knowledge about the health care industry. Utilizing a case management approach, program staff provides follow-up services that support youth through the process of returning to high school, entering post-secondary education and/or obtaining meaningful employment. Area partners include: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, New England Baptist Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital, Harvard School of Public Health, the Forsyth Institute, the Whittier Street Health Center and the Joslin Diabetes Center. HCFY supports, educates, and employs young people in a contextual learning environment using an approach that combines classroom instruction and worksite experience.

The goals of the program are:

• To enhance the educational skills of youth using a project-based contextual learning approach
• To encourage youth to complete high school by returning to school or enrolling in a GED program and/or to continue on to post-secondary education
• To prepare youth for work by providing them with the skills and knowledge necessary to obtain and maintain employment
• To provide youth with positive work experience and exposure to careers in the health care industry

HCFY runs during the school year; and central to the design of HCFY, a core group of youth is employed at partnering institutions. Weekly workshops provide youth with an overview of different health care careers and the academic pathways for these jobs, as well as basic work readiness skills such as professional comportment, resume writing, work ethic, appropriate dress, interview and job search skills. Youth also participate in health careers seminars and computer, literacy, and numeracy classes. As a requirement of the program, participants are responsible for conducting in-depth research in one field in the health care industry and at the end of each program cycle, producing a written report on that field, and developing a presentation of their findings.

ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS
Eligible participants must be Boston residents ages 16-21 and should contact Frances Batuyios 617-442-4299 for more information about more specific participant requirements. All interested and eligible participants can fill out an application at our office or through the web at http://www.sociedadlatina.org.