 Good afternoon everybody. It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to our final panel of the day. Once again, I'm Taylor White, the National Director of the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship. Thank you for joining us for this final panel, The Future of Youth Apprenticeship, Policy, Systems and Sustainability. Over the course of the day today, we've had an opportunity to do a deep dive into the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships, a regional program that's experienced significant growth since its launch in 2014 and continues to serve as a resource and mentor to countless other partnerships looking to learn from their approach. But, well, there's been a lot of interest in youth apprenticeships from communities across the US, many of which are on the line with us now. Youth apprenticeship remains an underutilized strategy in the United States as you've heard a few times today from multiple different speakers. This afternoon, on this final panel of the day, we're gonna talk to three leaders to understand what it's gonna take to make models like the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships more mainstream and how each of their organizations is playing a role in making that happen. So on the panel with me this afternoon, I am very excited to introduce John Ladd, who's the administrator of the Office of Apprenticeship within the Employment Training Administration at the US Department of Labor. John, thanks for being here today. I'm also happy to welcome Amy Firestone to the panel. Amy is the Vice President of Apprenticeship Carolina, which you've heard referenced by many folks on the call today, so she'll have an opportunity to tell us a little bit more about what Apprenticeship Carolina does and how they are supporting the growth and sustainability of youth apprenticeship across the state. And last but by no means least, we have Melissa Stowasser, Assistant Vice President of Community Partnerships at Trident Tech. You've heard already from Melissa today, but we'll be asking her to put a slightly different hat on during this panel to think a little bit about what it's taken over the last 12 years, not only to grow the program that Trident leads, but also to help other communities around the country learn from and replicate elements of their success. So without further ado, Melissa, I'm gonna kick our first question over to you. Help us understand a little bit about how the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships, rather, has grown since it launched in 2014. What steps specifically have you taken to grow the program locally? What's been critical to your growth and what have been some of the barriers that the program has experienced from in either practice or policy that makes it difficult for you to expand even further? Okay, well, it's a simple question to start. Absolutely, easy one. As we discussed earlier today, we were fortunate to be approached by a company who wanted to start this and were able to start a sector partnership to make it sustainable over time. And I think that that was a really critical decision early on. Another critical decision early on that enabled us to grow this was to get all of the partners and players at the table to create it together from the very beginning. So that everyone was engaged in what this could look like and they were buying into it because they were a part of the inception of it rather than having something thrust upon them that someone else created and then being told, you need to manage this aspect of it. So I think those are two really critical pieces that enabled us to grow. Another thing that enabled us to grow was that when we started having conversations with our industry leaders because of course they were leading this charge, this is their program and we wanted to keep it that way. They got excited when we got to the table and they immediately started saying, oh, and we need this and we need this and we need this. And we were able to say, ooh, let's slow down and let's do one and let's really work to craft one very well. Don't overdo when you start out. And I think that was critical too. So we started with one pathway and we had six companies that hired 13 students. And from that, it's just grown exponentially. And I think it was partly due to those pieces where we really collaborated together from the very get-go to do something well with a small start and then scale it from there. And I think that's something that folks should take into mind. I know that when you start creating similar programs or little different programs within your region as these apprenticeships, they're gonna look different from that. Your partners will look different, your regions are different. We find that across our state. Amy, I'll talk about that. I'm sure a little bit in the future, but just because your region is different from ours and just because your partners are different from ours and just because the group that you may stand up as your intermediary looks different from ours doesn't mean you can't do apprenticeship. It just means it'll look different from ours that can be equally successful. And so I wanna say that as well. So that was the mindset we went into this with. We also went into this with the mindset that it was a collaborative regional program, not our program or your program. It was collectively our program. And I think that that's a critical component to helping it grow as well. So beyond that, we began to reach out to more employers. We get the more employers should get on board, the more sectors who want to do this work, the better off you're gonna be. So after the first year, we strategically started reaching out to other sector groups. After that, it starts growing itself. Sector groups start coming to you and saying, can you do that for us? And I think that's a critical piece in the growth of it as well. Finding funds, one of the barriers we had was that in the state of South Carolina, dual enrollment was not covered by the state. And so it was up to the individual family to pay the cost of the educational expense. We wanted to level the playing field. So it was really critical for us to decide upfront that we were gonna raise the revenues to cover those expenses. In our region, we didn't want to put that cost on the employer and one of the reasons we didn't want to put that cost on the employer was because we were approached by small companies and we were asking them to pay the wage of the student who's not yet skilled. We were asking them to provide a mentor to train them on a job. And so we felt like they had an investment. The community also needed to invest. And so we did not put that educational expense on them. So over the years, we've really been lobbying for system change and we've got more assets coming from the state to help with the educational component, the funding of that piece. Dr. Firestone and her team worked tirelessly to pull down federal dollars to assist us in making that slip clean so that all students can participate in this equitable. I think you also asked about barriers that we've had. COVID was a barrier, surprise, right? COVID sneaked in and kind of caught us by surprise just as we were really accelerating. And so it slowed down the growth of our program but didn't stop it because we had all of the pieces in place to continue the work even through the worst of the pandemic. Another thing that has been a barrier for us is that we have a real mismatch. We find we have, for example, a tremendous number of students who want to apply for IT programs. And yet we've not been able to get many employers to offer IT positions. So we've got to really work to make that so that there's a match between the number of students who want to apply for the programs and the jobs that are available. And I know, again, Apprenticeship Carolina has been really helpful in trying to lead that more as a state initiative to get more employers from certain sectors on board and engage. So that's a problem and barrier for us. Transportation creates a barrier for some students and it's one we're still trying to solve. We do have philanthropic organizations who provided us dollars, but now we've got to figure out how do those dollars that we have convey to the student in a way that helps them solve that and only to those students who really need that for the equity piece. And staffing, you know, you're gonna find that staffing is sometimes an issue. We started small with basically two people running the show. We've grown over time. We have more people participating. We've also got philanthropic organizations to fund staffing. So we have a group that is actually funding a youth apprenticeship specialist to work along with our coordinator to really oversee the support systems that are available for you. So more than you need to. No, that was really helpful. That was great. Thank you, Melissa. So I hear a whole bunch of actionable lessons for folks. I think a couple of really interesting things that you said one was start small to go big. Sometimes there's a tendency to say, let's meet everybody's needs all at once as quickly as we can, this thing moving. And you all have taken a much more deliberate approach to start small, do it right and expand over time. I also appreciate your pulling in the kind of balance of philanthropic funds with the state investment. And I think that's one of the things that we see is really important to scale is finding ways that we can create funding models for these programs that leverage both existing, funding within existing systems. And where that funding can't cover things like, for example, additional flexible funding for staffing, or sometimes these really sticky transportation issues. We know that other sources of funds can be really, really helpful and important for continuing and maintaining the momentum of program growth. So thank you for touching on all sorts of things. One of the many things that you referenced that's been, I know very important to your work and has also allowed you to play a role in supporting the expansion of youth apprenticeship in South Carolina is the important role that the folks at Apprenticeship Carolina play. So I'd love to ask Dr. Firestone Amy a quick question for your part. Could you tell us a little bit for folks who are unfamiliar with your work and your organization, what Apprenticeship Carolina does across the state as a statewide intermediary? And specifically also when and why you all have decided that youth apprenticeship is a priority for the state. Thank you, Taylor. And thank you so much for the invitation to be part of this important panel. So Apprenticeship Carolina is part of the South Carolina technical college system. So China Tech is one of the 16 technical colleges that's part of our system. So Apprenticeship Carolina is actually a state agency. So we are state government, but we support the 16 colleges with apprenticeships. And that looks very different depending on the college. There's 16 colleges. I like to say 16 languages and 16 different countries because they all operate very differently in terms of apprenticeships, but a lot of other things as well. So just to tell you a little bit more about us, we've been in existence since 2007. And we were the main intermediary for the state with helping employers develop registered apprenticeships. And so our team helps develop all of the apprenticeship standards. And we work collaboratively with the companies and with the technical colleges or other providers, whether they're K-12 or other vendors that the companies may wish to use. We help them put it all together, ship it off to our South Carolina DOL director so that they get registered. So the process is very seamless. And that really been our bread and butter since 2007. However, in the past few years, we really expanded beyond just helping work with the colleges and employers on that process to helping work with companies with implementation of their program after it had been registered, helping train them with Rapids 2.0, which is the database many of you may be familiar with, and also helping work with potential apprentices and current apprentices. And that's a really new terrain for us. There's a lot of ground to cover there, but we work collaboratively with Chardon Tech, similar to all the other colleges. So when there's a company that is looking at apprenticeships as a potential model, we will meet with them with Chardon Tech and then whatever their college it might be, help them design the standards and then Demetrius Smith on our team, he's the apprenticeship consultant working with Chardon Tech. Make sure all the programs are set up and get them shipped off to DOL. So the process has been in place for many years and it's quite successful because companies don't have to worry about the paperwork. We take care of all of that for them. And we have many different models and samples we work from. So we really have a good system in place for getting registered apprenticeships established. And I wanted to mention that in South Carolina, all of our youth apprenticeships are registered with DOL. So that is something that we have worked really hard with employers, whether it's in the Charleston area or other areas of the state on developing. And we see more companies kind of looking at registered apprenticeship for youth as a model, but usually they'll start with an adult apprenticeship program, kind of get their feet wet with an adult program and start, like Melissa said, very, very small. So that's a little bit about our role. We are statewide. So I think you can go any corner in South Carolina and find an apprenticeship Carolina staff member. We really spread ourselves out throughout the state with the different roles we have. Thanks to funding from the US Department of Labor, we have actually doubled in size in our team. We have more apprenticeship consultants supporting rural areas. We have registered program specialists. And I'm excited to announce that we'll have a bilingual registered program specialist working with Hispanic-owned businesses. And then finally, we have youth apprenticeship coordinators. I know that's a mouthful, but whereas at Trident Tech, they have some internal staff at the college, most of the other colleges don't really have enough staff to support all the functions for youth apprenticeship. So apprenticeship Carolina handles really all of that process. So we are expanding and have a lot of great opportunities, but Taylor, was there anything else that could help me answer? No, I think you've covered a lot. I mean, I guess one, if maybe one quick follow-up question, given that we're focusing on policy and scale in the session, if you had to name what you think apprenticeship Carolina's most important kind of function for promoting scale or sustainability of youth apprenticeships in the state has been to date, what do you think it is? What's that sort of secret sauce that you all have or the kind of magic piece that you have that you think is important for supporting the growth and scale? Yeah, I think it's the one consistent approach and message for the whole state. So no matter if you are, you know, let's just say a automotive supplier located in one part of the state or you are the parent company, another part of the state and you wanna do a youth apprenticeship or an adult apprenticeship, you get the same approach from apprenticeship Carolina, which is somebody from the team will sit down with you, bring in the technical college and other partners, develop the process and get it squared away very quickly. So that's one message, one approach. We take away all the burden and we have funding to back it up. So no one's really having to pad a pocket. That's great, that's really helpful. I couldn't agree more that that consistent approach is important. We've had panels all day to day where folks have mentioned some of one piece that's important for promoting growth of youth apprenticeship is sort of helping folks understand what it is and not just sort of assuming that people see its value on its face in the way that many of us who have worked in the space for a long time do and that goes for educators, that goes for employers, that goes for youth, parents, et cetera and having that consistent approach and that consistent message can be really helpful in sort of helping to raise awareness of what apprenticeship can be and can do for our communities. So that's really helpful. Thank you, I am sure we'll come back and pick up on lots of things that you mentioned but before we do that, I wanna pose a question to John who is on the line with us. Like apprenticeship Carolina, the US Department of Labor has shown an increasing interest in supporting youth apprenticeship over the past several years. We heard this morning from your colleague acting Deputy Secretary Hanks who talked a little bit about recent investments from the US Department of Labor, for example, in youth apprenticeship. Amy has referenced one that South Carolina team received the youth apprenticeship readiness grants. So we've been very excited to see that and promote that across our networks. But I'd love to hear from you, John, as you play out such a significant role in the federal government's activity to modernize the apprenticeship system. What does it mean for the Department of Labor to be interested in modernizing the system and how do you fit into it? Oh, sure. Thanks, Taylor and thanks so much. Really want to extend my thanks to Trident Technical College in New America for hosting this important event today and really excited to be on this panel with Amy and Melissa who are doing such great work. That's a great question and it's an important question for the system moving forward. There has been such an evolution in apprenticeship really and one of our former colleagues referred to as the apprenticeship renaissance that's been happening here, close to 10 years but really took up steam in about 2015, 2016 when the federal government started making investments in apprenticeship for the first time. The Department of Labor made an investment in the American Apprenticeship Initiative which was soon followed by congressional investments in apprenticeship. So it's been an exciting time for apprenticeship and with that increased funding has generally called for goals to expand the program and grow the program. And to do that, we really do also have to modernize certain elements of the program but as well, I'm sure I'm gonna talk a little bit later we wanna make sure that as we modernize the system that that doesn't mean any loss of quality or rigor that we really wanna hold true to the core elements of apprenticeship. So there's a couple of things we could probably touch on here but this is one of those important questions that we've actually asked our advisory committee on apprenticeship to also help think us think through this issue with us but there's two really kind of big elements that I certainly think of. What is around flexibility? We wanna make sure that our policies and regulations allow for different models and approaches but we wanna hold to those core elements of what it means to be a registered apprenticeship program which is employment, OJT, classroom instruction, progressive wages, credentials, strong labor standards including EEO. So we really wanna balance that rigor and that consistency of what apprenticeship means but recognizing that apprenticeship can look different in the construction industry versus IT that youth apprenticeship might look a little bit different than apprenticeship that's primarily serving adults. So that was one of the things we really focused early on was kind of opening up the model to different approaches and different models, different partnership structures. There's many different models. Amy talked about the particular model in South Carolina. There are a whole range of models and we really wanna support and encourage those different approaches while holding true to those core elements. I think another area and Amy talked about this as well is how do we leverage technology, streamline processes, provide the right kinds of financial supports to really make it easier for industry to start an apprenticeship program. It shouldn't take months and months to stand up an apprenticeship program. It should be an easy to understand process of how you get started with support available. It should be driven by the industry for their particular needs. And we really wanna make sure that, again, we want that consistency, we want that rigor but we don't want it to feel like it's this overwhelming burden for an employer or an industry group to stand up an apprenticeship program. So this is an area that we've made a lot of investments to support, whether it's at the state level with the work that South, like the work that South Carolina is doing, but also industry intermediaries that could be that go between playing that role that the technical college system plays in South Carolina. We set up TA centers this summer in four critical areas to help on really some pain points in the system, whether it's around data and information sharing, whether it's around building equitable programs, whether it's about other critical areas of the system. We've invested in building competency-based frameworks. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel and we don't have to wait until someone develops a program. We've got curriculum and designs ready to go off the shelf that people can use. So those are some of the things we think about when we talk about modernization. Well, it's an awful lot of things. So I want to pick up on something that you referenced kind of at the top of your comments, John, because I related to a question we get all the time and the work in South Carolina is has committed itself to registering youth apprenticeships. We don't see that everywhere. So you said very early on in your comments that the US Department of Labor is trying to think about how to offer flexibility while holding to core elements. This is a question first for you, but I'm sort of curious to hear also from Amy and Melissa and apologies because I didn't prep you exactly for this question. But what do you say to folks when they say you can't register a youth apprenticeship or how on earth am I going to take this adult apprenticeship that has 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning, sorry, OJT and hundreds of hours of related instruction requirements, how on earth do we adopt that for youth that must not be done? What is the answer to that question that you give John first? But I'm also curious, Amy and Melissa, how you've tackled that question. Sure, that's a great question. And I think there's some good policy discussion that needs to happen in that space as Congress is debating reauthorizing the National Apprenticeship Act. I think that is an area that folks are looking at. But I would say that we see tremendous demand for youth apprenticeship and tremendous growth in youth apprenticeship and when we say that, we mean registered apprenticeship. That's what we support. That's what we provide funding to support. But the number of youth participating in registered apprenticeships has doubled over the past 10 years. Now over 68,000 youth aged 16 and 24 are in apprenticeship programs and represent 25% of all apprentices. That is some tremendous growth that's just happened here in the last 10 years. When we put out, as you mentioned, the youth apprenticeship readiness grants, we saw tremendous demand for that funding opportunity. And this is clearly another area that we're gonna look to invest more in the future. But we know there is just tremendous, huge demand for registered apprenticeship programs serving youth either high school or out of school youth as well. All right, folks, you heard it here in no uncertain terms. You can indeed register youth programs. Melissa or Amy, are there, and isn't there anything you'd like to add for that from your regional or state perspective when you get that question? No, we can't, there's no way we can do this. Yeah, I'd be happy to respond to that. You know, when we sat down with our employers and they wanted to register a youth program, we really let them leave the conversation with that and what that could look like. We had some employers who were in that initial group who had adult apprenticeship programs which were much more extensive and took them much further. But they saw value in starting a youth program that would take them to a point where they had skills enough to be employed but maybe not as far as the adult program would take them. So when we designed the apprenticeship programs, we designed them around those certificate programs that we offered at the college in the career specific areas that did make them employable. So the students go through their certificate but they're not going all the way through an associate degree. And so they're finished and they are employable at that point. But again, we're building them with a ladder of progression. So the particular company I was mentioning then ended up hiring students out of that program into the adult program and they were halfway through already. So students that they really liked from that particular program that they wanted to see progress were able to move on through the adult program. Since then, we've had companies like McLeod. You saw Debbie McLeod earlier if you were with us for the employer panel and they have a really interesting structure because they're bringing in students as interns from their high school in the summer and giving them exposure and that the student and the company feel that this is a good match. Then they're putting them into a youth program that takes them through the certificate program. They're registered, they're employable at that point. If they're doing extremely well, they go on into their adult apprenticeship program and they move on through an associate degree and they're looking to go on even to baccalaureate degrees in cybersecurity. So you can register youth programs and you can build them as a lateral progression in conjunction with adult programs that exist. Amy, would you like to add more to that? Sure, and I'll say as we're in like a full expansion mode for youth apprenticeship in the state, COVID is extremely challenging right now to get new companies on board for apprenticeships in general, but specifically youth apprenticeship and just a lot more concerns about liability. But what I did want to say was looking at each individual area that you're in see which companies, this is what we're doing are willing to hire 16, 17, 18 year olds in general. And I'll say that right now a lot of manufacturing companies are kind of skittish about hiring people under 18 just because of the challenges that they face in general. But looking at some of the auto industry, a lot of dealerships are looking at youth apprenticeship hospitality and tourism here that's where we've had a lot of new youth apprenticeship start in the past few months because of the gaps that this industry is facing they really need to get creative and look at ways to grow their own talent. So I would say look at the industries right now because years ago it was a little bit different but now there are fewer companies that are ready to dive into youth apprenticeship youth registered apprenticeship who don't already have an adult apprenticeship program but consider those industries that are really hurting for employees and are looking at creative ways to build their own. So like I said, we've had luck with hospitality and tourism recently because they have such tremendous gaps in employment. So youth apprenticeship, I had one company last week in the upstate area said sign me up for five occupations for youth apprenticeship, I'm ready our hotel need to bring in new talent. But other manufacturing companies they're just not quite ready because they're trying to deal with their own workforce right now and the COVID challenges that it brought on. So I said I would highly suggest for registered apprenticeship look at those industries that are really facing the most immense challenges and they may not be the ones that a couple of years ago you would have been looking at. Also the public sector, we look at the public sector as well as a great place to engage new organizations for youth apprenticeship. So thinking kind of outside the box by looking at what companies are even willing to hire youth in general is the best starting place that we've seen. So I want to play devil's advocate for a second and as we move to our next question on this last point I think that there's a lot of wisdom in going to where there's demand from employers. I also think that there can be a risk at times in growing so quickly that you lose sight of quality. And at PIA we believe firmly that apprenticeship can be an engine for expanding economic opportunity and creating pathways to good careers for youth furthest from opportunity. But programs have to be designed really intentionally and occupations have to be selected to be sure that the wages that young people are earning the sort of long-term career opportunities that they can have following an apprenticeship are there for them. And sometimes when employers say we need this talent now those jobs that they're trying to fill in the short term are not necessarily the sort of long-term jumping off points for careers that we might like to see for young people. Amy, I'm not saying that that's what's happening in South Carolina, I'm just naming it as a risk for really rapid growth in any sort of system. John alluded to this I think in his first few sentences but I'm curious for you all what you see as some of the greatest risks in expanding youth apprenticeship really quickly. We wanna see it grow, we wanna see it become a more mainstream opportunity but of course growth for growth's sake sometimes has its limits. So what do you see as some of the risks in expanding youth apprenticeship really quickly and what steps have each of your organizations taken to ensure your supporting growth in high quality equitable apprenticeships rather than just growing for the sake of growing? And anyone can dive into that easy question first. Start off Taylor if you'd like this to piggyback. I think that with our model I just wanted to mention that by doing registered apprenticeship we don't really run that risk because no matter if it is the hotel associated registered apprenticeship for 16 year olds or the maintenance mechanic they're all following the DOL standards of an approved occupation. So they all have those high quality elements of the starting wage, the wage increase and really the whole process is the same for adults. So I don't think if you follow the registered apprenticeship model you still have that standard quality no matter if it's youth or adults. So I wanted to mention that just to help the audience understand that they're not gonna be dipping into low quality if they do go rapidly. And I would also say that the one thing is the mentorship. We were just in on Friday with the Embassy of Switzerland we visited Swiss Chrono which is a manufacturing company in the small rural area in South Carolina, a very impoverished area. They started out with two registered youth apprentices. I think this was last year and they had tremendous success. And they said, you know what? We're gonna have nine. We're gonna aim for nine. We're gonna look at different high schools that we normally don't engage with. And they said, you know, I don't think we can get a lot bigger because the mentorship. And I think that's the risk is that with youth apprentices they need to ensure that there's a really great mentor available to coach these students. The mentor we met with at Swiss Chrono he mentioned that he even helps them learn life skills. I mean, they're in a small rural area. He helps kind of be that great community figure for them. So I think that's the biggest risk is making sure if it's a registered apprenticeship you need a mentor making sure that mentor is available to handle the volume of multiple individuals who are under 18. Sure. Yeah, that's an important point. And not one that I think folks think about when they just think of creating more opportunities. John, I saw you on mute. You wanna get in with an answer there? Yeah. I was gonna say Amy's still my thunder there a little bit. The check's in the mail, Amy. Appreciate the support there. But yeah, exactly. I think by focusing on registering these programs you have a lot of protections in place. I would add though that I think we continue to emphasize and we're gonna continue to emphasize probably even more strongly moving forward through our funding opportunities that, there's really a strong emphasis on equity and quality and labor standards in the kinds of programs that we wanna invest in moving forward. So I think that's another place where there's some additional protections to make sure that folks are thinking through the kind of questions that you're raising here. And Taylor, I would say that, for us we're really, really fortunate in our region to have a chamber who's heavily engaged in talent development space. And one of the things that they do is a talent demand study. And so the talent demand study really looks at where are the jobs and where are the jobs projected to be in each of the industry sectors. And then it also looks at where are we producing graduates from K-12 from any level of post-secondary to fill those jobs and where is the gap. And so we're strategically looking at those programs that would lead students to a family sustaining wages that fall within the need for our region and where that gap exists where we know there are gonna be high quality jobs available. So we use that as a guide. And I think any kind of resource like that that you can draw from in your region to figure that out really will help you guide and sort of alleviate that risk. And then of course we work with Amy and her team very, very closely to make sure they are registered to USDOL standards so that they're getting that high quality. The other thing that we've done is as we sit down with our industry leaders and we talk about what do you need them to achieve. We map out high school courses and college courses that help them achieve what they need academically but also lead to a ladder of progression for the student. So that they are engaging in some sort of post-secondary credit work as a part of that apprenticeship that can lead them on an upward trajectory should they choose to embrace it. And so I think all of those things together really help to alleviate those risks. That is a perfect example I said in my opening remarks of how sometimes it's hard to see the PIA principles in action if you just read them but there is a perfect exemplar for folks on the line of the importance of portability. This idea that students are earning credits that they can use after their apprenticeship concludes to earn additional credentials, additional degrees and move upwards and onwards in their careers over time. Whether that's right away or 10 years later they have that sort of currency in the education marketplace that can be really important. We are nearing the point on this panel where we will move to audience questions but before we hand it over to them I have a couple more things I'd love for this group to talk about. One of the things that's been really interesting in hearing you all talk is how often and you have unwittingly or not helped prove my point that I wanted to make in this panel a little bit about the importance of connecting systems. And so Melissa has referenced at times how the state intermediary apprenticeship Carolina has been very supportive to their work locally. Amy has shared the work that apprenticeship Carolina does around the state to build and support other partnerships that are trying to launch and run and grow youth apprenticeship programming. And John has made reference to a number of ways that the US Department of Labor has supported the growth of youth apprenticeship and will moving forward. And so I think folks can see that there are ways sort of different levels if we think about these folks and their organizations aligned vertically across the apprenticeship system that these different actors are working together to sort of reinforce one another's progress and opportunities. So it's really exciting to see here. I would love to hear from you all though. I mean, that sounds like it's really easy and it all works very smoothly. But I'm curious if we could do one sort of lightning round for all of the panelists. If you had a magic wand that you could wave and make some sort of change whether it's in policy or practice or in mindsets around the country, what is one change that you would love to see that you think would be important for promoting the continued expansion of high quality youth apprenticeship opportunities in this country? And anyone can get in here. No one seems to be chomping at the... Who wants to take that first? You limit us to one change and that just makes it so difficult to come up with one. I see everybody. Melissa, if you talk fast, you can get more in. Taylor, I would say it's really, really critical to do relationship building. I think that we need a structure that really enables us to embrace partnerships across the different levels as you've discussed. You know, the local level to the state level to the federal level, but also within our regions and that supports the work of partnership development and intermediary action that enables these to take place. We need to be funding and standing up really strong intermediaries at the local level, at the state level, because they both are critical in making this work become a statewide system and at the federal level to ensure that all states are working together in a collaborative way to ensure a national level of high quality apprenticeship programming. I guess I would go for it. Yeah, I would build on that. I mean, I think this is such an important question around kind of the evolution of the national apprenticeship system, right? Apprenticeship is different than WIOA. It's different than secondary and post-secondary education. It has a different structure, a different approach. It really requires that employer engagement and industry engagement to thrive. You could have an apprenticeship program with a single employer and that can work, right? The employer could provide everything. The employer could provide the classroom instruction, the mentorship, but that's really hard, right? That's really challenging for any single employer or any industry group to be able to do that. So to Melissa's point, we really are starting to move from the idea of the system being pretty much just the federal government, state government, and industry groups, right? That sponsor these apprenticeship programs. And we now have this much more rich, complex ecosystem of partners, stakeholders, and players that really previously hadn't existed. But how do they all come together and form a coherent system? How do we clarify what roles each entity is playing, what roles they can play, allow for local and statewide flexibility and customization to leverage the players that make the most sense, but really articulating this new vision of what the national apprenticeship system looks like and who's part of it, right? And making that as inclusive as possible, including equity groups and CBOs that can provide a pipeline of talent into these programs. But I think that's some of the really exciting work that kind of lays ahead here of trying to better define what the national apprenticeship system can look like moving forward. Yeah, that's exciting to hear. I think that's something that we really enjoyed seeing and learning about through our work in PIA. It's just the number of different organizations that make up these partnerships and the different roles and responsibilities they take on. It's been a huge area of learning for us and we're excited to be able to share some of that with the field to encourage new and different actors to take on new and different roles because they think you're right to really reach many of the industries and communities that really haven't been able to take advantage of apprenticeship in the past. It will take some creativity and some different names and faces in the crowd. But exciting to hear your change ideas. Amy, last but not least. I might sneak in a couple too, Taylor. I would say the most critical part are the businesses. We have a lot of resources in South Carolina for funding right now for the apprenticeships. We have a lot of staff, but it's really the businesses and any incentives that the businesses can receive to help train their trainers. I think with businesses being short staff, especially looking at youth apprenticeship, that mentor piece, I think any incentives for businesses. And also we haven't really talked about pre-apprenticeships and kind of the power that they can play and help increase equity and diversity in apprenticeships by there being more funding and more support for pre-apprenticeships and having those count as kind of part of the overall system. I think those would be critical elements. Okay. Well, Amy, you didn't mean to, but you walked right into our first audience question. So I'm going to take your final comment as a segue. What is, as you see it, the definition or the difference rather between a pre-apprenticeship and a youth apprenticeship? I know this varies in some places, but from the South Carolina perspective, please give us yours. I should get like $100 every day. I answered this question because I get it every day from somebody, either in the state or outside the state. But in South Carolina, as I mentioned, all of the youth apprenticeships are registered with DOL. So that's anyone 16 and up. And technically it's really for high school students, but now we're working with older youth as well. Pre-apprenticeships can be for anybody. And this is where the technicality comes in. If they are working in a pre-apprenticeship, getting paid for work, they have to be 16 and up. But if they're just doing the classroom hands-on, they can be 14 and up. And so we've done a lot of work to develop a pre-apprenticeship standards process. So trying to attack was actually one of the first colleges in the state that went through our pre-apprenticeship standards certification process. And so any entity in South Carolina can actually do that. And we had the Urban League of Columbia develop their own pre-apprenticeship and submit it to us. We have companies that do that, technical colleges. So the pre-apprenticeship is really the preparation for the registered apprenticeship. And we actually require that any pre-apprenticeship registered, we call them certified, with apprenticeship Carolina has letters of support from companies that have a registered apprenticeship. So China Tech had done that this past summer with their culinary arts program for high school students. And it is quite different because a few of those students in Melissa can tell you more, were successful in entering a registered youth apprenticeship, the ones who did their pre-apprenticeship. So those are the technicalities and glad to share kind of how we came up with that process with anybody. It was a very long process, but it has proven to be very impactful. That's great. And it can be important hearing about certification process. I know it can be important for quality. I will underscore there a piece of your answer, Amy, which is just that part of your model is requiring that pre-apprenticeships be connected to a registered apprenticeship program. They are preparation for a registered program, not separate from. And I know, I don't know if, John, you have any comments on that just from the DOL's perspective on the model. But I know that that's a key piece that we often remind folks of. It's not a replacement for another type of program. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, that's like critical component that, that ultimately there's some kind of articulation agreement or agreements between that pre-apprenticeship program and the registered apprenticeship program. I mean, obviously the idea would be, you want the exit requirements for our pre-apprenticeship to match up with the entry requirements for a registered apprenticeship. And that there is that clear articulation. I mean, there's lots of forms of work-based learning. There's lots of forms of experiential learning. But I think, you know, for folks who want to use that term, you know, I think it does convey a lot of expectations on the part of the participants. And I think we want to be really clear with people that pre-apprenticeship really does lead and has opportunities to enter directly into a registered apprenticeship. That's helpful. And Amy, if I just quick word, if I can just piggyback on that, you know, we were asked about doing pre-apprenticeship when we started doing apprenticeship. And my response to them was you can't have a pre anything until you have the anything. And so we really had to build a youth apprenticeship program and then back up from that. And so we built the pre-apprenticeship in Culinary as Amy mentioned this summer and got it certified through apprenticeship Carolina. And it's for 14 and 15 year olds to give them exposure in the culinary industry. So they did three week intensive classroom experiences in the Culinary Institute to determine whether or not they want it to apply then for a registered apprenticeship at the age of 16. So we had a few apply and we're hoping for more next year from that group. That's great. And I love that. I'm definitely going to steal that. You can't have a pre-apprent, a pre anything if you don't have an anything. So, so good for you. I like that one. So we have a couple of other questions here from the audience. I'd love to throw you away. One is a real easy one. And Amy, I'll direct this one at you. How many staff does apprenticeship Carolina have? I think we are 21 and growing. So we still have close to 30 when we finish hiring folks. Okay. So, so not a small operation. And getting bigger by the day. So statewide intermediaries soon to be about 30. Okay. Melissa, as a, as a regional slash local intermediary, how many staff do you all have working on the Charleston regional youth apprenticeships? We have 10. Well, if you count me 11, but we will count you many, many, many other roles within the college running $3,000. It's 3000 students enrollment programs and other employer engagement, but 11 people who will expend their energies in that space as needed. Okay. Very helpful. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The registration issue seems to be of great interest to our audience. So I have one more. And then I'm going to try to squeeze one last question in after this. We'll see how I do. But from an anonymous audience member, is there value in registering apprenticeships at both my state department of apprenticeship standards and the U.S. Department of Labor? And what would the value of registering with both be? I mean, generally, it wouldn't be necessary. Once you're registered at the state level or with U.S. DOL, there is reciprocity with the rest of the country and other states. I mean, we do see areas where national employers want to register nationally with U.S. DOL. And so that, but we also then there can be times when those programs should also register at the state level. If they want to access statewide benefits that might be available, but generally kind of, if you're just operating in one state, there really shouldn't be any particular benefit to registering both at the state level and nationally. Both are portable. Okay. Thank you for that. Another question here. This is, this is less to do with registration. But I believe. Really any of you could, this could be relevant, but how do you make the case and explain the importance of that sort of small and intentional growth to stakeholders and political offices who are pressuring for larger and larger cohorts? So I suspect this is someone who's dealing grant funding or political support, but how do you make that case for small and intentional growth? Yeah, I mean, we see it. I mean, it's true at the national level too. Right. I mean, you know, there's going to be significant expectations with potentially large national investments that could be coming down the pike. And I think South Carolina is just a great model of, of how it can work. South Carolina didn't grow overnight. It's been steady incremental progress since the early days of this initiative. And they've been able to sustain it and grow, grow every year. So I think. I think that's just a really good example of how you can do it. I think you have to be in this for the long term. Apprenticeship programs take a while not only to stand up, but to have a cycle of apprentices that go through to start to see the impact and see the results. We need employers to be thinking long term apprenticeship isn't, you know, a short term fix to, you know, the current supply chain, you know, crisis or some other immediate need where you're trying to plug in skill labor really quickly. It's something where everyone's got to have kind of a longer term view of it. But with that being said, I think there's still lots that we can do again so that the process of establishing a program should not take months or years that that should be simple. That should be easy. That's something that with the support of organizations and intermediaries like apprenticeship Carolina, that, you know, we can get you into an apprenticeship program, you know, today or, you know, this week, it really shouldn't be a big lift. There should be plug and play options for folks. There should be large scale programs, consortia programs that employers can join. So you're not establishing a new program. You're joining an existing program. There should be many, many options that make it kind of easier for people to get involved. And I think when you bring systems together, you know, I think the other success from South Carolina is you're leveraging an existing system and you're leveraging all of that capability and capacity. I mean, think if we had every workforce board sponsor one apprenticeship program, if we had every high school district sponsor an apprenticeship program, right, you could grow fairly quickly. But again, all the structure and infrastructure has to be in place and all those protections to make sure that we're growing good programs as well. And I would just say if you start to large, you're going to to put your resources too quickly and it's not going to go well. And if it doesn't go well, then it doesn't grow. One of our greatest accomplishments was starting with 13 students, one of whom got a job right out of high school and bought a house at 19 and others who were equally successful. And it was there going back into their schools and back into their communities and telling their stories that caught fire for other students and parents. You have to give it time to catch fire. You have to give it time to market itself. If you start with the vision that you have to start out huge, you're very, very likely not to get there. Yeah, and we hear sometimes too from employers or from partnerships around the country that because it's such a big ask of employers to take a chance on young adults that doing it really well and making a good impression the first time is the way to keep them coming back. And that sometimes if that first experience with a youth program doesn't pan out, employers are more hesitant to come back to the table once those kinks are fixed or addressed just because it seems like a bigger ask for them. And I can understand that perspective too. So we have just two minutes left here and I'm going to ask one final question from the audience here. I'm going to add to it a little bit. Any one of you can feel free to claim this one. But can a program sponsor simply amend their standards to change the age requirements to accept youth into existing apprenticeship programs? And to that, I will add, even regardless of what your answer is, what do you think the biggest change adult serving programs need to make when they begin accepting youth or they adapt their model to work for youth? John. Yeah, I can take the first one and maybe Amy Emerilist would take the second part. Yeah, that's a pretty simple process to amend your standards. You know, you may want to think about your selection procedures in terms of whether there's an impact there and how you're drawing students into the program. If they're being referred from high schools and other sources, that's a different selection procedure than you might use for adults, but it generally should not be a complicated amendment to an existing set of standards. And I'll take the second part. Yeah, I'll take the second part of that and say, if you do that and you start engaging younger students, you need to put in more supports for those younger students. You heard earlier today, if you were with us, students keep talking about Ellen Kaufman, Ms. Kaufman, Ellen, Ellen, Ellen. She's the youth apprenticeship coordinator here and now we have a specialist who helps her because she engages with the students and parents. She is the hub for them, the support system who ensures that all of their emotional and mental needs are met. She interfaces back and forth with the K-12 system to get the supports from their school counselors to alert our folks that employers need to know that something's going on or to find out from employers when things are going on. So the kind of support you give those students is different to get them launched. Yeah, I'll just concur with both John and Melissa and then also kind of go back to that mentor piece. Having a really strong mentor, not just somebody on paper is really important for working with youth apprentices at the company because that's where kind of the biggest challenges will be with learning new equipment, kind of managing that on-the-job expectations. Strong mentor is really, really important there and as John said, updating the programs is really, really simple. We do that every day for companies. Okay, well, believe it or not, we've already expended an hour of time together. So I know that this is a little bit of an awkward thing but I just want to say a big thank you to Melissa, Amy, and John for sharing your perspectives and insights with us during this panel. Folks who are on the line, you've heard about supports and policies that can support local program growth and success. You've heard about state resources and strategies to promote growth across regions and states, working with different types of employers, different types of institutions serving in that intermediary capacity and different ways that the state entity can deploy itself in support of this work. And finally, from John, we've heard about strong federal standards and policies both current and potentially future from the federal government as part of its work to modernize apprenticeship and find ways to make this work more efficient and more flexible so that it can continue to grow and reach new corners of our country. Thank you very much for joining us today and sharing your perspectives. Careful, what you wish for will probably have you back again someday. But thanks very much for your time and for being with us this afternoon. And of course for all the work that you do to expand high quality and equitable apprenticeship opportunities for young people. Thanks so much. I'm charged now with giving our official end of summit. Thank you to lots of folks. So first I'm just going to give a big thank you to all of the panelists who have joined us today to help us understand the many, many, many things that go into making the Charleston regional youth apprenticeships an innovative and effective regional partnership that delivers results not only for its employer partners, but for the young people and education partners that make it tick. I'd like to thank the PIA national partners and funders who support our work to make events like this possible and also to thank everyone who is on the line with us today. I would love if the folks who are behind the PIA and PIA are there. Thank you so much. Thank you to all of our very last slide for the day so that I can share with the folks who have stayed with us to this point in the afternoon. A couple of ways that you can remain connected to PIA and the PIA network over the months ahead. First, I would like to let folks know that National Apprenticeship Week hosted and organized by the U.S. Department of Labor is coming up in just a few weeks. On November 16th, our partner JFF will be hosting an event called a vision for the future plan for today. Information about that event is available on their website in soon hours as well. On November 17th, New America will be hosting an apprenticeship Twitter chat so we can share some information about that and you'll see some of that on Twitter in the weeks ahead too. And on November 18th, the PIA will be hosting the PIA equity solutions lab workshop hosted by New America. There is information about that event available on our website now. If you enjoy learning about the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships today, we encourage you to consider joining the team on April 4th and 5th for the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship Program Development Workshops and Conference. That will be an opportunity to do an even deeper dive into the work that Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships leads and we look forward to planning and hosting and sharing more information with you about that event in the months ahead. The slide here says 2nd through 4th. It should say 4th through 5th, so apologies for that. And last but not least, I want to let folks on the line know that on a monthly basis, we host through PIA a network learning series. They are typically webinars or office hours that feature national experts or practitioner experts from around the country. You can subscribe to the PIA's monthly newsletter using that link on the screen. Sorry, the URL that's on the screen is on the screen. Please do subscribe to that. We advertise those events there and we also share resources and tools and updates from across the field via that newsletter and anyone is welcome to subscribe. And my very last offer of ways to stay engaged is on our next slide, so if you could move to that, I'd like to invite you and your partners to join us in a virtual networking event that we're going to host over the next 30 minutes here. We're going to meet in small groups with other folks who are interested in youth apprenticeship to share ideas, resources, contact information so that we can continue this conversation and continue our collaborative and collective learning about how this field is going to grow and continue promoting quality and equity in everything that we do. So please join us. There's a URL on the screen. I believe it is also shared with you via that resource button that you can see. And last but not least, I'd like to invite you to join us on our next slide. We have a lot of directives and feedback on the day via our post conference survey, which is also here on the screen. We're going to leave this slide up so that if you would like to go to either of these links, the event or the survey, you have a few minutes to jot down those URLs, but otherwise we'll hope to see many of you in just four short minutes on our networking and once again, thank you to everyone who made today possible, most especially the New America events team who don't get praise on these calls very often. But Angela, Narmada, Jason, Shannon, and everyone who's on the line, thank you so much for helping us get to this day and making it all possible. We appreciate you. Thanks so much.