Vol. 15, No. 2 • May 2011

Turning Our Busy Bees into Worker Bees

by Trishana Jones

Studies show that many youth who age out of foster care experience high unemployment and unstable employment patterns. The NC LINKS program strives to address this issue by providing services so that all youth leaving the foster care system have sufficient economic resources to meet their daily needs.

Cultivating a Work Ethic
Caregivers are in a perfect position to teach young people what it means to work. In actuality, the notion of work is first introduced into the lives of children and youth as chores around the house.

Cleaning up one’s personal space, washing dishes, sweeping, and mopping the floor are aspects of work done at home as well as at places of businesses such as banks, restaurants, etc. Caregivers, like workplace supervisors, will usually demonstrate how they want a chore completed and then ensure the child successfully finishes the task. Delegating age- and ability-appropriate chores is a good way to teach children about personal responsibility and basic cleanliness and to establish a work ethic.

A work ethic is a set of values a person applies to completing a job or range of duties. A work ethic can consist of values such as being dependable, punctual, taking initiative, and asking questions to get a job done correctly. Building up a child’s work ethic can influence how they handle other interests, such as playing on a pee-wee football team or learning to ride a bicycle.

Work Experience Resources
By the time children reach school-age, teachers revisit the concept of work by asking the probing question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Children often respond with answers such as fireman, doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, or basketball player. However, the world’s economy and technology have evolved and, in turn, diversified the types of careers available to today’s youth.

All caregivers should introduce young people to good work skills and provide them with the information and experiences they need to select a possible career as they approach young adulthood. Resources that may prove helpful in this task include:

Volunteerism: Foster and adoptive parents can volunteer with their children at an rescue animal shelter, senior living facilities, homeless shelters, or hospitals and use the experience as an opportunity to donate time to their community and simultaneously expose the children to different types of careers.

Job Shadowing: Some public school systems participate in job shadowing, which immerses youth in the world of work and provides first-hand experience for certain job skills and careers. Call your local school system to find out if it offers a job shadowing program to its students. There are also online resources such as North Carolina’s Futures for Kids (www.f4k.org) and Florida’s Virtual Mentor (www.virtual-mentor.net) that allow youth to ask professionals questions about their careers. Junior Achievement (www.ja.org), is a nationwide resource for job shadowing information for children of all school ages.

Page Programs: North Carolina’s high school students are able to observe the lawmaking process and gain job-readiness skills as an office assistant through page programs offered by the Governor (http://www.volunteernc.org/programs/), the NC State Senate (http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/senate/pages/), and the House (http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/house/pages/home.html). In addition to building work skills, the Page experience is held in high regard on college applications.

Summer Jobs: The YMCA, YWCA, local governments, and nonprofits in your area may operate summer employment programs to help eligible teenagers and young adults acquire job skills and gain paid work experience. These programs are usually advertised each year in February or March.

Apprenticeships: For youth interested in professions requiring specific hands-on skills not obtainable in a four-year college, apprenticeships are feasible alternatives. Some apprenticeship programs are housed in secondary (high school) and postsecondary settings. Cabinetmakers, automobile upholster-ers, and alteration tailors are among the thousand-plus occupations available for apprenticeship under the NC Department of Labor Apprenticeship and Training Bureau (www.nclabor.com/appren/students.htm).

Internships: Internships present young adults the chance to perform in-depth, professional tasks in their career of interest. Career placement centers at colleges and universities are the standard clearinghouse for many listings of internships from numerous companies and organizations nationwide. A program coordinated by the NC Youth Advocacy & Involvement Office is the State Government Internship Program (http://www.doa.state.nc.us/yaio/interns.htm), which employs undergraduate, graduate, and law school students in a variety of departments of state government for 10 weeks in the summer.

Trishana Jones, MSW, is a child advocate with the NC Youth Advocacy & Involvement Office.

Copyright � 2011 Jordan Institute for Families