The Milwaukee Bucks are partnering with Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin to develop a workforce development initiative that will train and prepare adults and high school students on Milwaukee’s northwest side interested in pursuing careers in health care.
The program, which will begin this fall, will give those enrolled access to career training, internships and apprenticeships that will help them become a certified nursing assistant, medical assistant, health care customer service professional or information technology support professional.
A new “Learning Center” will be built in an existing classroom at Carmen Schools of Science & Technology’s northwest campus at 5496 N. 72nd St., to house training programs taught by Milwaukee Area Technical College and Medical College of Wisconsin. Bucks and Froedtert & MCW leaders said the facility could help train more than 300 students and adults in the surrounding Silver Spring neighborhood over the next five years.
Carmen Schools of Science & Technology are college-prep schools chartered through Milwaukee Public Schools at three locations on Milwaukee’s south, southeast and northwest sides. The northwest side campus includes both a middle school and high school.
“(We’re) launching a career readiness program that very specifically works in the health profession and information technology, which are both two of the highest interest areas of our students but also two of the highest needs areas in improving southeastern Wisconsin,” said Carmen Schools of Science & Technology Head of Schools Patricia Hoben. “Before they graduate from high school, students will have taken courses for which they’ll be able to get college credit. But they will also be in apprenticeships where they’ll be able to explore in a hospital setting all the different types of health professions, so that by the time they get to college, they’re not wasting a minute in making choices that really matter.”
Hoben said the Bucks and Froedtert & MCW have committed more than $500,000 over the next five years to support the training courses at Carmen.
The initiative is the first of multiple education, workforce development, chronic disease management and community health programs the Bucks and Froedtert & MCW plan to unveil as part of a newly-forged long-term partnership in the coming years. Froedtert Health President and CEO Cathy Jacobson and Bucks President Peter Feigin said the two organizations have committed a total of $5 million over the next five years to support those programs.
