 Many schools are offering pathway choices to students in CTS, including pathways focused on courses from the Health, Reparation and Human Services cluster. In this video, we're going to visit schools that are currently offering pathways using courses in the HRH cluster, specifically focused on health and caring services. We'll talk with the people involved and discover some of the promising practices they're using in their pathways programs. By the way, even though the focus is on pathways related to health and caring services in the HRH cluster, these examples may be useful for designing pathways for other clusters as well. Now, let's visit our first school. With the health care aid program, what I really enjoy is being able to reach out to people. It's basically a way of stepping into the health care field, getting your toes in it. Probably something to do with medicine in my future, but at this point I have no idea what. But I figured this will help me whichever way I go. One day I would like to become a nurse, and also this year I want to become nurses too, so we can take what we learned and then bring it to, you know, whatever we study next. I think that isn't important for students to have the opportunity to have these courses because it lets them kind of be aware of what that profession would entail and, you know, if that's something that they want to do after they graduate. I'm actually looking at becoming a speech pathologist, so a lot of the skills that I've learned in the course are going to be easily transferred to speech pathology. We're literally certified for health care aid in this program, so it's definitely a stepping stone. So here at our high school we run the health care aid pathways program. It is in conjunction with Redger College, and part time a Redger College LPN instructor comes into the high school. We needed to find a way to work with Redger College to give those kids the credentialing so that when they finish here they could be very employable in the health care field right away with the skills that they've learned while sitting in high school and while going to Redger College and the hospitals doing their internships. The health care aid program is a combination program where we work in connection with Norquist College. The program itself is a full year program which is unique right now to the health care pathways program where they go for full afternoons approximately three hours all year long to grant students registered in the program high school credits as well as a health care aid certificate once upon completion in their July practicum. And we're drawing students now from all over the city, from all of our sister and brother high schools in dual enrollment capacities so that students from other schools and from St. Joseph's have the opportunity to take advantage. The way the EMR program works is the theory portion basically is taught at the high school. So we've aligned all curriculum through Portage College curriculum, Alberta College Paramedics curriculum and our own CTS curriculum. We've met all the outcomes in all three areas. The outcomes that were not met through actual courses such as first aid or respiratory system, cardiovascular system, we used project courses. So at this point in time we have eight one credit courses that encompass the theory portion of the EMR program. In delivering the program we don't have the number of students to sustain it in Coal Lake High School. So in Lakeland and Northern Lights School Division we've allowed, we've opened it up to all of our high schools so I deliver via video conference to all five high schools in Northern Lights and that allows us to keep our numbers high enough to sustain the program. Our school offers three different pathways, two of which I'm involved in, early learning and childcare and we do medical science and technology. There are courses that students are very interested in and we're getting some really good positive feedback from the students that have been through it and they want to continue going on into the next levels. Even within the pathways that we offer, we offer a variety of ways that students can approach those pathways. For example, if they're studying in early learning and childcare, they could work in facilities with really young children from birth to five, they also have opportunities to work with a speech and language pathologist. Our kids are getting this experience that's to die for, it's really exciting, they're just loving it. On a regular basis we're going into play schools and daycares and they're just seeing early childhood development hands on. Some of the things we had to look at was numbers, obviously. We did have a restriction from the college because of the work experience placements that they're going to do. So we were restricted to only 16 students. So we had to sort of do an interview process to decide who would actually be allowed into the program, not just a sign up and you're in. With the health carried program, we have it set up so that Red Deer College is not involved until the second and the third semester. The first semester is strictly the CTS courses. It does allow you or us as a school to take in slightly more students than we're going to be able to accommodate because I think that by the time they have one semester, five credit CTS offering, it helps students to determine whether or not it's going to be for them, plus they get to go out into the facility a couple of times that first semester to see what it's really going to be like. Most of these courses lead to credentials. Most of these courses lead to them going into further studies in that area. So I think it's a good model because it gives them some good solid foundation and it really helps them to understand what it might be about and is this really the course I want to follow? And it helps them be a little bit motivated as well because often times when there's a credential there, they're thinking they're working towards that, they're gaining something that they can use in life outside of high school and that's extremely valuable. When the students are done the program, the health carried pathway program here at the high school, they will actually receive their health care aid certification which actually means as well that we will have students in grade 11 and 12 who will be convocating from Red Deer College prior to actually graduating from high school. Dual credits enables us to give them CTS credit and then they will also have at the end of the practicum in July an actual college certification of the health care aid so they can actually go out into the workforce and begin working as a health care aid part time or full time. I initially wanted to go into nursing but they offered the EMR course at school and I figured that would be a foot in the door. So I took that course and realized that I really liked it and enjoyed it so I did a few ride-alongs and got my ACP and finished it and then went to college next year for my EMT and finished ACP and now I'm working. The health carried program does definitely come with some costs. We are covering the majority of the cost. Students have a small amount that they do need to pay every semester to cover a little bit of the cost. The setup was actually fairly costly because we set up video conference suites in all of our high schools so that's in five of our high schools. So we do look for outside supports in all of the different industries and those things have been forthcoming. We've also been imaginative in how we can solve these things because our current arrangement with NorthQuest allowed us to rent them out some school space and take the rental income from that to pay for some of the staffing that we have to provide. As a teacher I'm there to administrate the CTS side of things but they require a nurse to actually do the instruction due to governmental legislation. Where we generate our funding is through the CTS credits. With these new pathways came new equipment that had to come into the building and so we were cautious, we looked at that fairly closely. Most of the equipment that is required for the different CTS modules we currently had here at the high school because of the Bio 20, Bio 30 program. The other thing is we've built a really good working relationship with our hospital and if we need to borrow or go over and use we can definitely do that. Once you're into the program usually the disposable items that we use hasn't been overly expensive. The majority of the hands-on equipment that we use in class they were in place. A few of the other pieces of equipment that we've managed to purchase over the years with the budget and then we've been able to borrow some from our local ambulance service. There's a really good reciprocal relationship with Coal Lake Ambulance Service. With this training they get really good opportunity to go out into the workforce while they're in high school and make some really good money so that they can save for their future post-secondary. Early learning in childcare one of the coolest things is that I've got three kids who are applying and using their credentials that they got last semester or last year and they're going and applying now and getting summer jobs and getting one of them has a position for all next year based on her certification. The fact that we work with these kids for an entire year we sort of become a family and they really get to know each other and they support each other's weaknesses and strengths and they really find out who they are because we've had a lot of individuals that are extremely shy and through project work, through presentations they start to discover who they are and what they're capable of and so you see their independence and their self-esteem grow with this course and it's really wonderful to see. I would say to anyone that does not have a facility right now look outside your walls and don't quit and don't make excuses. In this video you've seen only a few examples of the many possible CTS Pathways programs. We focused on health and caring services in the HRH cluster but hopefully these examples have inspired some pathway program ideas for your CTS program.