‘I took a leap of faith and here I am today’: Ontario program guides youth to careers in skilled trades

Nattisha Johnson worked in a child care center, later as a babysitter, but it wasn’t until she participated in a program that helps young people pursue careers in the trades that she found the right fit.

“The important thing to me is that I have daughters, and being in the trade, which is predominantly male, was a good thing for me because I was going to be their role model,” said Johnson, who became a blacksmith. .

That was in 2013, when he participated in a program called Hammer Heads, which helps youth from underrepresented groups pursue careers in the trades, a program that the provincial government recently provided more than $ 350,000 to create an additional 390 places.

Labor Minister Monte McNaughton contacted Johnson after seeing a post on social media about how the show changed her life, and “was crying as she told me she had a 10-week chance through Hammer Heads to trying the different skilled trades and she signed up for an apprenticeship right after, ”she said.“ And when she became a certified journalist, her salary was $ 44.08 an hour, plus pension and benefits. ”

The single mother told McNaughton that, for the first time in her life, she could afford to buy a car, she recalled. “That speaks to why we are funding programs” like these.

The province currently needs some 14,000 construction industry workers and, in its recent mini-budget, the Ford government pledged an additional $ 90 million over the next three years to “help break stigma, simplify the system and encourage participation. of employers in apprenticeships “. . “

The Central Ontario Building Trades created Hammer Heads in 2009 as a way to encourage youth from at-risk communities, as well as the underrepresented community, to consider trades as a career.

Quoc Truong, the construction industry trade representative, said the program is aimed at people between the ages of 18 and 26 and was launched after Toronto’s violence-plagued “summer of arms”.

Truong graduated from the program 10 years ago and is now a licensed steam installer.

He said he grew up in Regent Park after immigrating to Canada as a Vietnamese refugee living in a Hong Kong refugee camp.

“I dropped out of college, I dropped out of college, and I didn’t have a path or an address,” he said. “I was working from one dead-end job to another” before a social worker suggested Hammer Heads.

“It brought awareness, where I could see, touch and feel the different trades,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone in the industry.

“I took a leap of faith and here I am today.”

Truong said it was necessary to convince his parents to support his career choice, but when they saw that “it is a viable option, with a good pension and good benefits, and a decent and well-paid salary,” they realized.

Most unionized construction workers earn between $ 80,000 and $ 100,000 a year, he added.

McNaughton told the Star that the provincial support for Hammer Heads is part of his plan to “spread these opportunities more widely and fairly.”

He noted that “not all young people need to go to university; there are other paths to excellent and meaningful jobs. We all know people in specialized trades who are actually earning more than people with PhDs. “

The provincial government is spending about $ 43 million to boost youth training programs, including hiring youth advisers to provide teens with information on how to work in the province’s 144 skilled trades while they are still in elementary school, beginning in the first grade, although the focus will be on 7th and 8th grade, which is when children often start looking for career options.

McNaughton also announced $ 218,200 in funding for the Pinball Clemons Foundation to help guide Hammer Heads students as they work towards their business certification, and money for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 353 to provide virtual training.

Hammer Heads runs six programs a year with 15-17 students at a time. During the pandemic, that number dropped to nine. In total, Hammer Heads has led 561 young people to seek apprenticeships.

“Hammer Heads has been instrumental in dramatically reducing the demand for welfare,” a spokesperson for the program said in an email to the Star.

Johnson said working in the trades was a good option and that he liked to start early in the morning as it allowed him to be home with his daughters for dinner and bedtime.

His daughters, who are now 9 and 10, “love it,” he added. “My youngest daughter is a future blacksmith in the making.”

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Reference-www.thestar.com

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