The Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP) is a HRSA initiative that provides funding for programs that encourage low-income students and students from medically underserved areas to go into health careers. For more information about HCOP, program requirements, links to other HCOP programs, or an application, go to http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/diversity/hcop/ or contact Karen Smith, 301-443-1348, ksmith1@hrsa.gov

This report describes HCOP programs at the University of Montana, Oregon Health Careers Center, and Yakima Farmworkers' Clinic. The report also includes a description of a similar non-HCOP program in the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

University of Montana Health Careers Opportunity Program

The Montana HCOP started in 1993 as minority program, and has broadened its target participants to include youth in all disadvantaged communities as well as communities that are under-represented in the health fields, including reservations, rural areas, and communities that don't have health care access. A goal is that people from those communities will enter health fields and return to practice in their communities.

The program sponsors a summer program serving about 42 students, as well as six Saturday Academies throughout the school year, each with about 25 students. Each student can attend two of the six-hour Academies.

During the six-week, residential summer enrichment program, junior and senior high school students and college freshmen attend classes in the sciences, communication skills (writing and speech), and college information such as financial aid. Students can also participate in daily tutorial sessions and get hands-on experience in laboratory activities, as well as participate in small group discussions on health issues, hear weekly guest speakers, attend financial aid workshops, job shadowing, research observation and Saturday field trips. Students in the summer program receive paid round-trip travel to Missoula, MT, and a daily stipend of $55.00.

A sign of the popularity and usefulness of the program is that early students are now coming back and working with the program as tutors.

A related HCOP program, the Saturday Academies, offers 4th, 7th, and 10th graders exposure to role models in health careers, entertaining science experiences, lectures, and field trips. Students receive a stipend and a certificate of completion.

For more information, contact Brandi N. Foster, Native American Center of Excellence. School of Pharmacy & Allied Health Sciences, 341 Skaggs, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812; 406-243-4095; bnf@selway.umt.edu, or look online at http://www.umt.edu/hcop/.

Oregon Health Careers Center Health Opportunities Programs

The Oregon Health Careers Center in Portland, Oregon, runs two HCOP programs, Youth for Health/Jóvenes por la Salud and SEARCH (Summer Enrichment Academy for Careers in Health). Both programs target first-generation, low-income college-bound students.

Youth for Health/Jóvenes por la Salud

Youth for Health/Jóvenes por la Salud, started in 1999, is a twice-a-month after-school program. Participating students hear speakers on health careers and go on field trips to health care settings and college campuses. They also receive information or college preparation and study skills and have opportunities for job shadowing and internships. (The 80-hour internships are with area health professionals and healthcare facilities. Activities range from front desk duties at a migrant health clinic, to doing rounds with a cardiologist.)

The program targets juniors and seniors high school students, who have to pass a language competency test to get into the program, but it also accepts some high school freshmen into the program and gives them some help with language skills.

The program focus isn't on students with high grades. They're looking for students with passion and the commitment to make something of their life, and will to work hard to do so. For example, one student, as a freshman, was barely getting Cs, but she seemed committed, so they took her into the program and by the time she was a junior, she was getting Bs, and by her senior year, she was getting As.

In the first three years the program has had 400-500 students, about 120-150 kids a year. All of the participants have graduated from high school. (A survey of family members showed that many hadn't graduated from high school and often had only a 6th grade education.) Of the 90% who went on to college, 85% went into health careers. Others who didn't go on to college went into the military, where they also went into a health field.

Originally Jovenes por la salud was funded by the NW Health Foundation and the Tuality Health Foundation to get more Latino students into health careers. The Salud fund currently pays for one- to two-week internships. Last year the Oregon Health Careers Center was awarded a HRSA HCOP grant, which allowed it to funnel kids into health care (as opposed to other more general federal funds that wouldn't have allowed them to recommend a specific career).

The HCOP grant prohibits targeting minority youth, but does allow targeting low-income students, so the Center is still reaching minority students, but a more diverse group (including African American and Russian immigrant students, for example).

SEARCH (Summer Enrichment Academy for Careers in Health) The HCOP grant also allowed the Oregon Health Careers Center to start the SEARCH program in summer 2003. SEARCH is an intensive six-week long summer academy with the goal of preparing students for successfully matriculating in and completing allied health programs at postsecondary institutions. Participants attend eight to nine hours, five days week for six weeks. They get transported to and from their home high school and get a weekly stipend equivalent to the minimum wage. About 45 students are enrolled.

Participating juniors study college prep courses, and seniors take community college courses in math, science, and medical terminology. They have to do a team project (data gathering on diabetes, for example), which they write up and present, so they'll get some experience with the kind of writing they'll have to do in college. They also get advice on finding scholarships and how to do a college search, as well as going on field trips to health care settings and college campuses. Each participant has a mentor—a college students or new college graduate£8212;who can give the students specific help. (The mentors get a weeklong training before they work with the students.)

For information about either of these programs, contact Andrea A. Flores, Program Coordinator 503-691-9088 x 113; aflores@ohcc.org; http://www.ohcc.org/programs.htm

Yakima Farm Workers' Clinic/ Northwest Community Action Center ConneX Program

The goal of this joint program of the Yakima Farm Workers' Clinic and the Northwest Community Action Center, located in Toppenish, Washington, is to introduce youth to health careers and provide an opportunity to develop the necessary skills to succeed academically and professionally in the healthcare field and to successfully complete their education and return to work in their under-served communities.

ConneX uses a comprehensive strategy to work with students, following them from middle school and high school through graduation from college.

Target participants are educationally and economically disadvantaged students in nine local school districts. The program also targets economically disadvantaged college students for a six-week summer program. About 60 high school students are currently enrolled. In the first year of the program, 28 students completed the six-week summer vocation program and Saturday Academies. About 32 students are currently attending Saturday Academies.

Activities

ConneX programs include Saturday academies, a six-week summer vocation program, a math and science camp, mentoring, internships, health career exploration, financial aid and scholarship information, and visits to university health career programs

Funding sources

ConneX programs are funded by grants from the Washington Health Foundation, the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Career Opportunity Program (HCOP), Washington Dental Service Foundation, Group Health Community Foundation, Academic and Career Excellence (ACE) program of the Tri-County Work Force Development Council, and the ALCANCE-WSU Nursing Program (ALCANCE is a Bureau of Health Professions program).

The program has formal partnerships with the Pre-health Professional Programs and Education Opportunity Center at Central Washington University; the Area Health Education Center, School of Pharmacy, and School of Nursing at Washington State University; the Office of Minority Affairs, School of Dentistry, and School of Public Health at the University Of Washington; Yakima Valley Community College, the Washington State Primary Care Office and the Yakima Hispanic Academic Achievers Program.

For more information contact, Lisa Campbell-John, 509-865-7630 ext. 256, lisac@ncactopp.org