CHIMACUM — Taylor Frank has wanted to be a nurse since she was 11. By the time the Chimacum High School senior graduates in June, she will be well on her way to that goal, thanks to the Jefferson Healthcare Workforce Development program.
Established in 2023, the program introduces students in the Chimacum, Port Townsend and Quilcene school districts to a wide range of health care careers, offers them guidance and supports their interest with the hope that some will join the local workforce.
“Healthcare is the fastest-growing industry in the country and in Clallam and Jefferson counties,” said Caitlin Harrison, the Workforce Development Program manager. “It’s predicted that, over the next 10 years, over 50 percent of the jobs in our county will be in health care.
“We are the largest employer by more than double. We know we need people in healthcare.”
Rural counties like Jefferson face significant barriers when it comes to recruiting and retaining healthcare employees and providers, contributing to workforce shortages that can lead to less access to care and contribute to poor health outcomes.
Long-term, grow-your-own strategies like Jefferson Healthcare’s look within communities to develop a qualified workforce.
In encouraging students to consider a career in healthcare and creating pathways to make that happen, Jefferson Healthcare is attempting to address a number of challenges.
About 64 percent of Jefferson County students don’t earn a post-secondary credential — like a college degree or certificate — within eight years of graduating, compared to the statewide average of 56 percent. More than 31 percent of the county’s workforce is 55 and older — a reflection of Jefferson County having the oldest median age (61) in the state, as well as an indicator of its health care needs.
The program was seeded with a $163,630 grant from Career Connect Washington to introduce eighth- and ninth-graders to the many kinds of opportunities in healthcare though job fairs. A grant from the Olympic Community of Health supported the development of healthcare as a CTE pathway in the three school districts so the program could tap into the enhanced funding CTE classes receive from the state.
Another Career Connect grant funded the creation of healthcare science curricula. A grant from the Service Employees International Union supported post-graduation training programs to become a care team specialist or a surgical technologist.
“We’re really building a scaffolding approach where we start in middle school and then there’s opportunities for students all the way through post-secondary,” Harrison said.
Students at Port Townsend High School who take anatomy and physiology can earn college credit through Central Washington University. In Chimacum, students in anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology I and II and medical terminology can earn college credit through Olympic College in Bremerton.
Ron Moag, superintendent of the Quilcene School District, said the program has showed students the many options they have for careers in well-paying jobs that won’t take them far from home.
The program has supported career fairs for seventh- and eighth-graders and field trips for high school students to the West Sound Technical Skills Center in Bremerton, a 10-district educational cooperative that offers advanced career training in fields like healthcare.
In the fall, Quilcene will offer a new class in the principles of biomedicine as part of a CTE healthcare pathway.
“We are really excited about that,” Moag said.
The Workforce Development Program’s focus on connecting learning and a real-world outcome in terms of a job align with the district’s teaching goals, he said.
“We’re always trying to show to kids the relevancy of a class to keep them interested and curious,” he said. “You’re going to want to learn.”
The curricula has been designed to apply a broad range of careers, from lab technician to nursing. All of the students earn certifications in CPR and first aid.
It also provides them with opportunities for shadowing, internships and mentoring at Jefferson Healthcare. The hospital also makes its staff available as guest speakers.
“We’ve had clinical educators come in and talk about infection prevention and vital signs,” Harrison said. “We’ve had people from facilities come in, finance, come in. It’s showing students the totality of types of careers within a healthcare setting.”
Community partners Olympic Ambulance, East Jefferson and Quilcene fire rescues, the Brinnon Fire Department and OWL360 that participate in job fairs and host student tours have been essential to the program’s success, she said.
Peninsula College has hosted field trips during which students learn about its healthcare degree and certificate programs, and they have a chance for some hands-on learning, like drawing blood from the vein of a mannequin used in phlebotomy training,
As part of the program, Port Townsend High School senior Juliette O’Hara, 18, shadowed intensive and acute care nurses on four eight-hour shifts at Jefferson Healthcare. She called it an intense but “amazing” experience.
O’Hara said it was the anatomy and physiology class she took as a junior, when she dissected a pig’s brain and sheep eyeballs, that convinced her to pursue a career as a registered nurse, and that led to the opportunity at the hospital.
“I was interested in healthcare, but the class helped me decide,” she said.
O’Hara is in the process of earning a certified nursing certificate at Peninsula College — in addition to finishing up her final year in high school — and will enter the pre-nursing program at Whitworth College in Spokane in the fall.
“I wouldn’t have known about the CNA program at Peninsula College if it hadn’t been for the Workforce Program,” O’Hara said. “It helped me so much.”
Frank and the other students in Tyler Walcheff’s anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology class at Chimacum have been learning about the human body through collaborative and hands-on activities, like using clay to build anatomical features on small model skeletons and to create models of the human heart.
They also are taking advantage of a new learning tool that arrived this spring: an interactive 3D touchscreen Anatomage table that enables detailed and in-depth study and exploration of the human body. The machine displays a real digitized life-size cadaver, complete with skeletal, musculature, lymphatic, circulatory, vascular systems, organs and other anatomical structures. It allows students to conduct dissections, study diseases and make diagnoses, among many other lessons.
“It’s really useful in showing you how the body works,” Frank said. “When you combine it with the clay modeling, it all comes together.”
The $79,500 machine was funded with an Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Expanding Health Science Programs in High Schools grant and a grant from the Roe Family Endowment for the Friends of Chimacum Schools to support instructional technology innovation.
Frank plans to attend Peninsula College in the fall, transferring the credits she earned in high school and enrolling in prerequisite courses for its nursing program.
“The classes in anatomy and medical terminology are going to be really helpful,” she said. “I will be that much further ahead.”
Walcheff said he can see Chimacum’s health care science program growing as more students become aware of it, and that it wouldn’t have happened without Jefferson Healthcare’s assistance.
“They’ve been an amazing partner,” he said.
Harrison said that, although grant funding had ended, the Workforce Development Program will not.
”I’m really pleased Mike (Glenn, Jefferson Healthcare’s CEO) and the senior leadership team have agreed to continue supporting it,” she said.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
