For young high school students, starting a career in healthcare might seem daunting. There are many factors to consider—the cost of education, the location of jobs, how to apply to programs and more.
“Many [students] want to go into healthcare but don’t know where to start,” said Omar Ramirez, Business Services Account Executive at Lake County Workforce Development.
But attaining a career in healthcare is more accessible than most high school students think.
Earlier in the spring of 2024, high school students from five area Lake County schools had a chance to explore healthcare professions through hands-on activities and interactions with healthcare workers during Endeavor Health’s Healthcare Discovery Day, an event co-created through the ASPIRE Lake County Community Workforce Development collaborative.
ASPIRE Lake County—formed through generous external philanthropic support and Endeavor Health’s Community Investment Fund (CIF)—brings together schools, universities, local government and organizations focused on workforce development to expand upon existing programs and co-create new programs. This collaboration provides exposure to healthcare roles, builds job skills and supports residents to attain healthcare jobs and meet community employment needs.
“We know there’s a challenge with filling healthcare roles, which has continued since the pandemic,” said Samir A. Desai, Vice President, DE&I and People Strategy at Endeavor Health and a partner in the ASPIRE programs. “We can’t rely on the existing pipeline of talent if we’re going to be able to meet the needs for staffing in the future.”
“So,” he continued, “[Endeavor Health] is investing in programs in the community that build skills and certifications that allow people to be employable in healthcare and create a diverse workforce of the future.”
Building block of success
The ASPIRE program started in Evanston, when the city and its public high school saw a need to invest in career development for high school students and young adults. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment rates for 16- to 19-year-olds were rising in the Evanston area, but that was coupled with the high demand in healthcare roles.
The City of Evanston and high school administration engaged with Endeavor Health Evanston Hospital to expand workforce development opportunities for high school students. The ASPIRE Evanston program was community-led with Endeavor Health leaders conducting a series of ideation sessions with local constituents.
“We wanted to start by asking what was the need? What are the issues and challenges? Where does the community see opportunity?” explained Desai when reflecting on those early conversations first with Evanston-based community organizations and later with Lake County community organizations.
The ASPIRE Evanston program received support from the CIF in 2021 and successfully placed 45 high school students in job-shadowing opportunities and paid internships around Evanston Hospital. It continues to this day, with 76 high school students and young adults engaging with hospital departments for various job-building and internship opportunities in 2024.
Building on this success, the Endeavor Health team looked to how they could replicate the program to Lake County. This initiative was buoyed by philanthropic support from benefactors who shared the common goal of creating a healthier community for all residents.
Expansion to help other communities rise
In 2022, the ASPIRE program was enabled by a generous donation from an anonymous benefactor to be replicated in Lake County, learning from the successful Evanston model of community-led conversations and insights to inform workforce development programs in healthcare.
“When you meet the community where they are, it doesn’t look like what you thought it would going in and it doesn’t look the same everywhere,” said Jacob Shultz, a Workforce Development Program Manager in the DE&I and People Strategy division at Endeavor Health’s Human Resources department.
“Each ASPIRE program is uniquely structured for the communities they serve, whether in Evanston or Lake County,” he continued.
The ASPIRE Lake County program has been inspiring for students who attend workforce development events and for those who participate in the career development and internship opportunities.
For example, Highland Park High School worked with ASPIRE Lake County to host a series of job panel discussions with a variety of speakers representing different healthcare careers. More than 1,600 students attended the sessions throughout the school day and heard from representatives in various healthcare roles such as nursing, physician assistants, laboratory technicians, pharmacy and IT. The program included a facilitated panel discussion with an opportunity for the students to ask questions of the group.
“We did a survey with the [Highland Park High School] students and found that from the moment they walked in to the moment they walked out, they increased their knowledge about the different roles in healthcare and also increased their interest in healthcare as a potential career,” said Jeff Zakem, MHSA, System Program Director, Community Impact and Equity at Endeavor Health and ASPIRE program partner.
Growing a healthy community
The ASPIRE program is closely tied to Endeavor Health’s mission to help everyone in our communities be their best. The team leading the ASPIRE program understands that social determinants of health, access to jobs and many other factors affect a community’s outcomes. By building stronger economies and lowering barriers to employment via opportunities for job shadowing and paid internships, the ASPIRE program is truly transforming community health and wellbeing.
“We know that if our neighbors and their families don’t have access to education and jobs, that leads to all kinds of health challenges,” explained Zakem. “Economic wellbeing is the underpinning to so many things—it affects neighborhood safety, access to healthy foods, and green spaces.”
“Investing in the community is really about creating space where people can pursue their interests in a way that allows them to be who they wish to be,” he continued.
Thanks to philanthropic support from external foundations—including the Finnegan Family Foundation, which has supported ASPIRE Evanston for a third year—the ASPIRE program continues to help students and young adults across the Endeavor Health NorthShore Hospitals region in Evanston and Lake County.
“We grew the number of internships from three openings at Evanston to more than more than 80 internships between Evanston and Lake County, with 22 of those converting into jobs over the last three years,” said Schultz about the program expansion.
“Philanthropy supports not only the paid internship opportunities, but also educational opportunities, job support, and barrier reduction such as providing transportation for individuals in the program,” said Desai. “Philanthropy maximizes the impact we get out of these programs for the community and for the students and young adults going through ASPIRE.“
The Endeavor Health team is optimistic that both ASPIRE Lake County and ASPIRE Evanston will continue to grow. This is thanks in large part to the community organizations involved and the partnerships that Endeavor Health has built within those communities to offer increased opportunities to students in the program.
“We want to help ensure that people are getting to a thriving wage, not just a job,” said Zakem, “and we want members of the community to see their first role as a stepping stone to something bigger.”
These efforts would not be possible without philanthropic support. We are powered by the generosity of donors who directly impact our ability to deliver on our commitment to community-connected care.
Photo credit: Jon Hillenbrand