Career Empowerment Program for Black Students

For the past 5 years, PCI has been adamantly working towards improving workforce development and career excellence for minority youths across the Fox Valley. We have connected over 200 high school students from Neenah, Oshkosh, and Menasha to over 50 different professional companies through our core Workforce Development programs. They are our Academic Career Empowerment (ACE) Program, the ACE Mentoring program, and finally the Manager-in-Training (MiT) Program.

The ACE Program is a full-day workshop based program in which we bring students from Neenah, Oshkosh, and Menasha high schools to the Fox Valley Tech campus to participate in a rotating series of workshops, each led by industry professionals from major companies across the Fox Valley. Each of these workshops provide students with a hands-on activity to teach them the initial skills they would likely be using in the represented career fields, while also answering student questions and providing resource information for potential internships/apprenticeships in the respective companies. We've allied with partners such as Miller Electric, Plexus, local Fire and Police Departments, Miron Construction and Partnership Community Health among others. Through this program, we reach over 200 students annually, all of whom report a high satisfaction score and an excitement to look for ways to continue their career search. We've had many instances of students getting apprenticeships immediately with major companies like Thedacare and Miron Construction during the program.

ACE Mentoring is a new program we are introducing to high school students across the Fox Valley. Through partnership with the school districts of Neenah, Oshkosh, and Menasha, PCI will be able to share a physical space with the school counseling offices in order to approach students directly. We check in on student's mental health and well-being while they are at school, while also following up with their plans from ACE to assist them in getting the educational and career building resources they would need to achieve their dream goals.

The MiT program is different from ACE in that we get students who are undergraduate college students (or high school graduates) to job shadow for professional companies in the Fox Valley, allowing them to get their feet in the door with practical experience that they can apply to their resumes and increase their network. This is a newer program introduced by PCI, currently on it's second year running this upcoming summer.

We are continuing to provide the best of workforce development for minority youths through these programs, but we are also looking towards finding new approaches and new ways to connect with them and make sure they find their ideal career paths for successful futures.

Links:

• our website