Health is Wealth: District 1199J’s Training and Development Fund welcomes newest cohort of aspiring healthcare professionals

Newark, New Jersey — New Jersey’s original healthcare union is welcoming its newest cohort of future healthcare professionals. District 1199J’s Training & Development Fund, a division of AFSCME, NUHHCE, AFL-CIO, administers five Department of Labor (DOL) approved apprenticeship programs. The approved apprenticeship’s catchment areas include Essex, Hudson, Union, Passaic, and Bergen counties. Recruitment specifically provides outreach to Newark’s young people and adult community members and approved apprenticeships include Certified Nursing Assistant, Physical Therapy Aide, Certified Clinical Medical Assistant, Certified Phlebotomy Technician and Certified Clinical Alcohol Drug Counselor. The Certified Nursing Assistant and Physical Therapy Aide training are also offered as pre-apprenticeship programs. 

District 1199J’s Training and Development Fund works to recruit, educate, train and mentor budding healthcare professionals and place them on solid career pathways. The Training Fund is also a member of the Newark Youth Workforce Collaborative, a collective approach to creating a school-to-workforce pipeline within Newark. Opportunity Youth Network (OYN) serves as the backbone of the Collaborative.

One of the main goals of the Fund is to connect with the Newark community and potential union members to increase the strength and vitality of the healthcare workforce. According to the Executive Director of the Training and Development Fund, Dr. Stephanie Harris-Kuiper, that starts with engaging young people. 

“We're bringing in young people and putting them in the arteries of healthcare,” Dr. Harris-Kuiper said. “And with OYN, we're now bringing in our opportunity youth. It's an excellent opportunity to deepen the relationship with our community.” 

The Fund has supported aspiring healthcare professionals consistently since 2008 via grant funding through the New Jersey Department of Labor Workforce Development. Because of that, the Fund is able to offer pre-apprenticeship programs like Youth Transitions to Work (YTTW) and Pre-Apprenticeship in Career Education (PACE).

YouthBuild Newark (YBN), a workforce development initiative of OYN, was recently awarded a $175,000 grant by the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey (HFNJ). The grant helps support the sustainability and growth of YBN’s Allied Health track by preparing opportunity youth in Newark for entry-level careers in healthcare and a successful transition to post-secondary placement through a newly established partnership with the Fund. 

“There are so many psychosocial impingements with opportunity youth - getting them in the door is just a piece of what needs to happen,” said Dr. Harris-Kuiper. “Through the grant provided by the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, we are able to incorporate much-needed social-emotional support in our program design, including a licensed therapist for the young people. We can’t view opportunity youth the same way we view other student groups because the issues they have are not the same. When we're funding programs, if we want to be successful with this target population, we have to embrace them, surround them, stay with them, and help them tease out these impingements that impede their opportunity to succeed.”  

Rob Clark, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of OYN, added, “We are grateful for our partnership with the Fund and for their commitment to empowering young people to transcend their circumstances. These pre-apprenticeships don’t just educate and train these young people for jobs in healthcare, they also prepare them to be leaders in their communities.” 

In this six-month training program, young people learn soft and technical healthcare skills such as bedside manners, bedmaking and personal care. After completing the program, many of its graduates are placed in partnering healthcare facilities such as Barnabas Medical Center and Inglemoor Rehabilitation & Care Center. 

Dr. Harris-Kuiper said, “Apprenticeships work. Some of our graduates are now doctors of chiropractic, doctors of nursing, doctors of occupational therapy - the list goes on and on, but the lesson is the same. Apprenticeships work.”

To learn more about the Fund and its pre-apprenticeship programs, visit www.1199jtdfund.com.