My name is Will Tess, I'm a senior advisor with the Center on Education and Skills at New America. I just want to thank you so much for joining day one of the PIA Youth Apprenticeship Summit. Our next panel, Adapting Youth Apprenticeship in Response to COVID, will focus on how intermediaries, education leaders, and employers are maintaining youth apprenticeship programs in the face of school closures and work disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis, and how student apprentices are navigating through this new climate. We've seen that with the great recession and other economic downturns of the past, youth have been the hardest hit, and because youth are often times crowded out of quality entry level jobs, they're more likely to have higher rates of unemployment and for longer, which can translate into a reduction of lifetime earning potential and other problems that we know can have an intergenerational impact. But youth apprenticeship has always provided a solid and important connection to work in school, a connection that will prove even more important as our country looks to ensure an inclusive and equitable economic recovery. Over the last several months, we've seen many examples of how youth apprenticeship employers have shifted to remote work and supervision to minimize disruptions on the job learning. We've seen how education providers have redesigned learning environments so that youth apprentices can continue to earn credits and industry recognized credentials and advance in their education, and we've also seen how intermediaries have established new protocols and offered additional supports to youth apprentices so that they can continue along in their career path. And today, we'll hear about some of these program innovations from a group of excellent speakers. Today, you will hear from Brianna Allen, who is the Director of Student Pathways for the Nonprofit Organization Horizon Education Alliance. H.E.A. is based in Indiana and serves as an intermediary organization that partners with employers, local educators, and community leaders across Elkhart County, and they have helped launch five different youth apprenticeship programs to date. One of their employer partners is Chemcrest, and so today we have Travis Meyer, who's a manager at Chemcrest, a logistics and supply chain employer based in Elkhart, Indiana. In addition to procuring goods and services related to maintenance, repair, and operations for Chemcrest, Travis is responsible for supervising youth in the Chemcrest Apprenticeship program, and one of those youth is Graham Nier, who's an apprentice at Chemcrest, as well as a senior at Northridge High School. As a project manager apprentice, Graham is learning the ins and outs of logistics management, including tracking inventory and production to shipment and delivery, and we're excited to hear his perspective as a youth apprentice here today. And last but not least, we have Melissa Stowasser, who is the Assistant Vice President of Community Partnerships at Trident Technical College, which is one of PIA's national partners. Melissa works with public and private high schools, homeschool associations, employers, and community partners to develop and provide seamless educational opportunities for students in the Trident region, and since 2014, Melissa has been engaged in developing and implementing the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship Program, who we've heard about them today, and we've heard from a couple of their apprentices today, and we're excited to hear from Melissa. So before we begin with some questions, I just want to remind the audience that you can feel free to drop questions that you have for the panelists in the Q&A box on your Zoom screen, and we will try and get to as many of those questions as possible. But to begin, I just want to kick it over to Melissa. So you could tell us a little bit about your youth apprenticeship program. Who are your partners? What sort of pathways are you offering youth? And generally, how has your apprenticeship operated before COVID-19 hit? OK, thank you. We'd love to talk about our program. I'm more than happy to share a little kind of test to that. We were very, very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, because when Boeing came to town, they terrified our local manufacturers as they were pulling all of the talent from our region into their employment. And so we were working with employers across the region to do adult apprenticeship programs and have been doing so for about 40 years. And we were approached by one of our German based companies about the possibility of starting a youth program because they knew that in this new environment, they had to do something to create a talent pipeline strategy. And so in that space, we had the opportunity to pull partners together to create a regional collaborative partnership that really moved to design the programs for students. And so it is a collaboration of entities, all of our local school districts, our local employers, the college, of course, the Chamber of Commerce, Apprenticeship Carolina, who's a statewide intermediary, philanthropic organizations who pay the students to wish them that it's all partnered together to create the Charleston Regional Program. And now they hire our employers are hiring 16, 17 and 18 year old students across nine different industry sectors, ranging from the manufacturing groups that started it to health care, IT, business, even pre law enforcement. So nine industry sectors. We have 18 occupational pathways right now to date. We've had 351 apprentices hired. We currently have 108 and we're excited about that in the midst of covid. Thanks for sharing, Melissa. What about you, Brianna? Could you tell us a little bit about the different programs that HGA has helped stand up in recent years? Absolutely. And thank you, well, we're excited to be here this afternoon and share about our youth apprenticeship program that has launched in Elkhart County. Currently, we have five different pathways in which students are able to access for youth apprenticeship from advanced manufacturing, IT, health care, financial services. And we work with all of our school districts. There are seven school districts within Elkhart County, ranging from rural all the way to urban. And so this opportunity came about for us to launch youth apprenticeship back in May of 2019. So we're still a little new to the game when we partnered with CareerWise Colorado. And so you hear quite a bit about them during this conference, but just kind of leading those efforts along with Charleston and others in the youth apprenticeship space. You know, we have local partners, employer partners. We work closely with our Chambers of Commerce, our Economic Development Council, our local community college, our state workforce board in the state. I mentioned CareerWise Colorado and, you know, there's a larger effort in the state of Indiana focusing on youth apprenticeship and really approaching it from a systematic approach through the community of practice, which is being led by a couple of organizations down in Indianapolis, Indiana. So all of those partners, all of those efforts are really enabling us to really bring about youth apprenticeship. Andrea, and I know one of your employer partners is Chemcrest. They were one of the first employers to sign on and to commit to hiring youth apprentices in Elkhart County. So Travis, I want to turn it over to you. I want to understand a little bit why pre-COVID during a period of record unemployment did your company decide to launch a youth apprenticeship program? And how have you structured this youth apprenticeship before COVID hit? Yeah, Chemcrest is a company that's always been involved in our community, takes an interest in our youth and just trying to do our part to be a good, you know, corporate citizen here where we work, live, and we play. So when this was brought to our attention, it was a no-brainer that we wanted to get involved. I think from probably at that point it was to just definitely to be involved and to build up our youth and to help our future workforce. Chemcrest, like I said, always wants to give back. And I think, like I said, that was just an opportunity to bring somebody in and possibly be an opportunity for us for a future full-time Chemcrest associate. If that's not the route they take, we've done our part to help develop our youth, you know, to get back to our community or wherever they may decide to go. Thanks, Travis. Graham, as an employee at Chemcrest and one of their first apprentices, I'd love to hear from you what really drew you to the youth apprenticeship program. So what drew me to the apprenticeship program actually was, I find on graduating early, junior year actually, so I doubled up my classes, kind of prepared myself for that. And my two older brothers previously went through the work-based learning or work experience route during high school. So I've kind of known a little bit about this and then, let's see, it was end of sophomore year. I heard about the like this new program that was coming up. I'm like, okay, so like I'll go try it out, like go to some of the meetings, see if it's like better than the work-based learning or the work experience that we have right now. And I quickly found out that this is definitely going to be a better program than the work experience previously that we had. So that kind of piqued my interest and I got more involved and it started looking into potential jobs that they had through the career-wise portal. So that really kind of piqued my interest to getting ahead now and set up just going at the college early with having career and experience ahead of time. What was your day-to-day experience like as an apprentice? So as a student and an apprentice, so in the mornings I would go to class for the first two blocks. I would do my classes, get everything done there, then I would leave, go home, change it to work attire, like button up, khakis, dress shoes, and then from practically 12 to 5 I would work at Chemcrest and then go home and then do my homework in schooling. So I understand things are a little bit different. Travis, as an employer, how did COVID impact your company and by extension, how have you had to adjust your East Apprenticeship program? As Graham said prior to COVID, he came in, he was in office 8 to 5 just working on the office business as usual. I take that back, not 8 to 5 after school. Then COVID hit, we had to kind of readjust with his role being in the office setting, not in say a warehousing or production setting. He was able to perform his work from home. So once COVID hit, obviously we all had to have flexibility to say any associates trying to find their way through this. We found our way through it, through this program and with Graham. It's the same thing. He's doing his first couple blocks in school online through virtual e-learning. Then he's logging into work, just taking care of business as usual. There is times where he does log in and out, so sometimes even he's, you know, getting some reports done from 7 to 8 even before he's getting into class or doing his schooling. Mainly the main thing is just, I mean, from a supervision standpoint, just staying in touch, all working remote. So it's staying in touch, staying engaged, making sure that he has work on his plate, which we always have work. And just making sure that the communication is always there, just because we're working remote and we're not in office, especially when we're talking about an apprenticeship program where there may be, you know, there may be a few more questions or more direction that's needed. Just being accessible to those concerns or questions and continue to guide him along. Fortunately with Graham, we did have the opportunity for him to kind of learn his rules and expectation before COVID hit. And I mean, he's pretty self-sufficient, but again, just staying in touch on a daily basis and making sure that he has all the support that he needs. But working from home, I mean, he's learned a new skill set. This is kind of new to our workforce where this could be a new way of doing business, you know, working remote and lowering your overhead. So he's just going to be another step ahead of kids that are not taking advantage of this program. It's great to hear about all the support that you as an employer offering, Graham and other apprentices at this time.  You support several youth apprenticeship programs across a number of industries. How have these programs been most affected by COVID-19 and how has your intermediary organization kind of assisted them in making sure there's continuity in programs for you? We'll start with Branna. You know, quite honestly, we were completely unsure if apprenticeship was even going to happen post COVID because there were so many concerns and just so much unknown. You know, luckily we've been able to retain eight of our apprentices and we were able to successfully launch with eight new apprentices this year. And so, you know, that's exciting. And I attribute that to the very strong relationships that have been able to be developed through being an intermediary and having that bird's-eye view of all the partners and kind of trying to keep the best pulses possible of where they were at during this time when they were having to pivot and transition to still be able to take work happen. And so, you know, it took a lot for us as H.E.A. and Career-Wise-Alcarte County to constantly be in contact with our business partners, to constantly be in contact with our apprentices just to see how their basic well-being was doing, really, you know, to check in with them on that. But then also to see how are they making these adjustments that would still enable them to have apprentices in the workplace and then even for students to feel comfortable actually continuing to work. And also checking in with our educators because, you know, education was kind of flipped upside down a little bit. It has exposed some great opportunities for virtual learning but, you know, many educators felt like they were new at trying to educate students. So we were able to see that and hear that and understand that, which then allowed us to be available to all of those partners during this time so that they could think through similar what Travis mentioned of how do we pivot to have students work remotely and what does that mean? What does that look like? Or if they are in the at the workplace, what are the safety precautions that are needed in order to have them there? Melissa, I'm curious to hear your perspective as not just an intermediary, but Tritec Tech is the primary provider of related instruction. So what has the transition been like for a lot of the programs that you operate and support? You know, we felt like we had the proverbial apple cart loaded and we were rolling along and everything was great and then on March 15th, our governor announced that, which was a Sunday by the way, announced that all educational institutions were going virtual or shutting down Monday morning. So the world seemed like the whole apple cart had turned upside down and we immediately started scrambling to figure out what could this look like and how could this continue? And as you said, little our students are duly enrolled at the college. So they are enrolled in the college classes in a career specific field taking college level courses. And so our number one concern of course was how do we continue to give them the quality job related educational or RTI, if you will, that they need in order to be successful in their apprenticeship program. So across the college, not just for the apprentices, but for all students, we moved everything virtual that we could possibly move to virtual learning. All of the folks in the labs like the welding labs were suddenly going in the instructors were filming and doing really high quality video presentations of what they wanted the students to know and to learn. Some classes were able to complete themselves virtually our cyber security classes were able to continue our I'm just a number of them were able to go on in a virtual environment. But those that needed the hand touch, you know, they needed to have those hands-on skills we had to be creative with. And so we finished out everything we could finish out virtually in the spring. And then in the summer, when we were able to start coming back, we had staged all of our labs to be safe environments with spiritual spiritual listening to me with spatial distancing, so that students could be spread out and we went to open lab environments in many cases where the students reach out to the instructor and they sign up for a time in that lab and then they came in and they finished up the hands-on piece of the course that they needed to complete in a very safe way. So that was number one. Number two was making sure we kept touch with our apprentices because it was a very stressful time, not just academically, but in the workforce as well. We had students who were continuing employment in their workforce. And some of them had concerns or their parents had concerns about their safety. And so we had to make sure we helped them to negotiate those pieces of that. We have a youth apprenticeship coordinator and a youth apprenticeship specialist. So they did ongoing touch with the students, phone calls, emails, keeping in touch with them, trying to find out their individual situations so that they could help navigate them through that. Some of our students got furloughed and they were panicked about that. And we assured them that the educational cost of their program would continue to be paid if they would just stay in their coursework. And then we would try to ensure that they had re-employment later either with the same employer or with someone else if we could get that to continue that on the job training experience. So that was part of it. Some of the students went to home to work at home and they were handed laptops so that they could continue their bookkeeping accounting practices and were able to do the work virtually. We even had students in the CNA pre-nursing program who were in hospitals and some of them were doing direct patient care with COVID individuals. So all of those contacts were being made. We were looking at them holistically. So some of them had real socio-emotional issues and we were connecting them with counseling services. So counseling services was helping them through that part of that as well. So all of these pieces were critical from the student's perspective. But we also have another unit in the college that's very employer-facing. And so while our youth apprenticeship coordinator and specialist were reaching out to the students and their families and trying to provide them with ongoing support, we had the Division of Apprenticeship and the consultants were reaching out to the companies to find out what were their needs, what were their concerns, could they continue.  The other part of that was we had just launched the new hiring process for the upcoming year. And so we were suddenly very fearful, as Brie was, that this was going to be a turning point for us and how were we going to be able to get students hired for the upcoming cohort. But we were really fortunate. Some of our industries continued to hire some slacked off and said we just can't participate next year. And for the healthcare industry, all of our hospitals were engaged in the work of trying to heal patients. And so our apprenticeship coordinator and our apprenticeship consultant from the apprenticeship division partnered together to do virtual interviews for all the students. And so they conducted virtual interviews and sent those to the hospitals and all the CNA to pre-nursing hires were done virtually this year from that interview stash. So those are just some of the things that we did. Those are some really helpful examples that you shared, Melissa and Brianna. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and for giving us that perspective here today. Graham, I want to go back to you. I mean, Travis brought up a really good point that you are building some soft skills and shifting to this remote environment. It's definitely something that'll probably help you out in the long run. But I just want to hear from you. What has this transition been like for you? Did you have to navigate any complications in the shift to remote work and the adjustments to how you are participating in class? What did you experience as a student and as an employee? So as a student, the transition, again, we originally thought of it, oh, it's only two weeks. This isn't going to be bad. It's just all going to be like that. But then as it went on, it obviously shifted to fully online. So that switch from being in class every single day, every single day of the year, for the most part, was completely different. So we switched to, again, all virtual, which was kind of a mess at first of how everything was organized and how we got our assignments and such. But as time went on, it got somewhat better, which was nice because organization for me and for all the other students is very important because we want to get these done because we don't want our grades to drop and fail since me and a bunch of other classmates are on higher tier courses like AP honors and IB courses that this transition kind of stopped everything to a certain degree. And then with the apprenticeship part, from going one day of being in office on the next day, not going back in for a good while was definitely interesting, definitely adapting to working at home and communication wise. So my communications goals have gotten a lot better from not being able just to walk up to say Travis and ask him a question, rather emailing him or calling him or calling other coworkers to ask questions and to resolve issues. So this, the training on the job site has definitely become more involved with technical skills, with like online, how to navigate our system, emailing new systems that we got. So it was just definitely interesting, that quick transition of rather being sitting in like a conference room, having a training session for a new software piece to just on a phone call or on a team's or on a Skype meeting, it was definitely interesting to say the least. It is quite the adjustment and I applaud you. I'm not sure too many people your age would be able to make that shift into Excel in the way that you have. So kudos to you. I want to remind our audience that we are taking questions. If you have any questions, you can turn into the Q&A feature or even in the chat box, we're aggregating them and we'll turn to them in just a moment. But my next question, and maybe we can start with you, Graham, is what sort of advice do you have for youth apprenticeship stakeholders, leaders, education providers, employers, intermediaries who are supporting programs for youth, what sort of advice do you have for them? I think it's really important to center our work around student voices because they know what works best for them and they have very unique experiences that sometimes we don't know about unless we ask them. So Graham, is there anything that you would share with the folks who are on today's summit as they're thinking about how to modify youth apprenticeship programs or even start new apprenticeship programs in the middle of a public health crisis that might continue for some time? So I would definitely say getting experience from the apprenticeships that are already in place, like the ones that I have with AGA, so they've reached out to me to speak and almost every single time I've taken that opportunity because I want to get the word out about this because this has changed a lot of things for me and has made me notice a lot of really good things about getting in the workforce in a career path that you really haven't thought of before. So whenever I have the opportunity to speak, I always do so to get the word out to help spread it in my experience because my experience has been absolutely amazing with ChemCrest and AGA on both parts. So definitely hearing the youth voice that are in the program, just getting that out so other kids kind of know, oh, so he's having a good experience. I hope that he is kind of sharing his word and hopefully I can pursue that as well. I think that's excellent advice, Graham. I want to open it up to our other panelists. What advice do you have for youth apprenticeship leaders to make sure that they're supporting student apprentices during these unusual times? I'll go with whoever wants to unmute themselves first. Okay, I'll go ahead. I would say that you really need to create really strong collaborative partnerships ahead of time so that when these critical issues hit, you have a team of partners who work collaboratively to really move it forward. Be flexible. It takes a lot of flexibility in looking at the problems and figuring out what they were and then coming up with creative ideas in that collaborative space to say, yes, let's try this to tackle it so that nothing is off the table. Everything is an opportunity for further development of your programs. And then I would say really depend on building a strong backbone for your partnership or your organizational structure. You have to have a strong intermediary who can keep all those disparate pieces working together in that collaborative space. We were able to get 47 students hired this summer and we did not know that that was even going to be possible in the midst of COVID, but it was that partnership mentality that I think really helped us move that forward in a constructive way. I would add that it's very important to stay connected to those apprentices in establishing a sense of community because we're now in a day where it's become more of a challenge to be in person with people, finding creative and innovative ways to use technology to keep them together to help with retention and to help, you know, share resources and kind of understand the challenges that they may be experiencing balancing school and work and e-learning and not being with people. And then I think the other one, other thing I would share is kind of take a look at some of the pre-training or pre-onboarding that apprentices may need before jumping into apprenticeship. For example, you know, COVID has showcased how critical technology and the use of technology is and how to use computers in different softwares and so is there opportunity to begin to embed some of those technical or technology certifications or pre-training to kind of help students start at a good point in their apprenticeship to be able to utilize those. And then, you know, I would end with just saying just start, you know, especially for those who are on the fence of not sure of how and when. Of course, you want the framework to be to be good quality and try to think to have parameters in place, of course, but start somewhere because as Graham says, when you begin hearing those stories from apprentices and when you begin strengthening those partnerships with employers and hear the stories that they share about how the youth have impacted in their facilities, it definitely shows that it's a needed opportunity and can definitely make a difference.  We were part of the initial launch here in Elkhart County, kind of feeling our way through this initial launch. And if we're a willing partner, we're willing to go through the learning pains with the program we want to be a part of it. We want to help grow it. And we're fortunate enough to have Graham and to benefit from the program as well. It's just not a benefit to Graham, to the apprenticeship whoever's involved. It's also, you know, a benefit to the employer and the company as well. So I would encourage anybody to get involved no matter what stage it's in. You can be in the forefront and you can help develop the program wherever you're at. If I can add a couple of things, I thought of one of the things that I think made it really beneficial for us or it made it possible for us to continue to move this forward was that when we did start, we started this as a sector partnership. So we didn't rely on one employer. We had a group of employers. So if one employer now is struggling with the whole COVID and has to fall out, it doesn't collapse the whole program because you have others to sustain it. And I think the other thing that I would add is don't hesitate to ask for help. There are organizations and philanthropic entities out there who are willing to help. You know, we discovered in the midst of this that some of our students really just didn't have the computers at home capable of really doing the work, especially in the engineering program, the CAD work that they needed to do. They just were not equipped to do what they needed to do. But we have a philanthropist now who wants to stash us with a lending library of computers we can put into their hands. Well, what a great benefit to these students and to the employers to us. So reach out to whoever you have in your local community and build it collectively, the more collaborative you can be, the stronger you're going to be as a group. Thanks, Melissa. And thanks for all the advice. I want to build on the last point that you made, Melissa. We have a question from the audience. How has your engagement with employers changed due to COVID specifically around employer recruitment and pitching to new potential partners? What is resonating and what do employers need to come to the table and be supported right now? So we heard a little bit from you, Melissa, but I definitely want to invite Brianna to share. And Melissa, if you have any other thoughts, you want to answer that question. Yeah, we're currently in our recruitment season now. And so we're having to approach it a little differently in that we set up Zoom meetings instead of being able to sit right with the HR manager or with the CEO or president to talk about this opportunity. But what's interesting is even though we are in challenging times, employers are actually still interested in these opportunities because there's still a talent shortage. There still is a gap and there still needs to be a pipeline developed to fill those open positions that are going to be forthcoming and even to bring in new talent for the new positions that are developed out of COVID. And so we've had pretty good success of being able to still get in front of employers and talk about youth apprenticeship as a talent strategy and a little bit as an economic recovery strategy during these times. Brianna, you mentioned you've had some success in messaging the importance of youth apprenticeship to employers. The next question we have relates to how you measure success. So from the audience we're hearing what do you measure as a baseline of success? What does success look like in general and how do you measure it? And how has your vision for success changed in response to COVID? And anybody can answer that question. You're trying to measure success now. It took us a while to get to where we really had some sufficient outcome data. But we're collecting all the data on retention of students from one class to the next success rate in the courses they're taking, completion of the two-year program, all of those types of things. And what we've discovered is that the youth apprentices are twice as likely to complete their college curriculum and finish the program as traditional students in the exact same career specific classes during the exact same time frames. So when you look at that it's pretty astounding in terms of the success of the program. We attribute that to the fact that we're triangulating around these students.  The K-12 system is there to support and assist them and then the college as well. And so the three of us, the three entities working together really help, I think, to keep that student moving forward in a productive way and address their individual issues. Graham may be able to give you some insight on that. So when I think about how to determine success with this program it's kind of talking about, and personally I think this, is how your skills have really developed and changed. So if I were to look back on my communication skills, responsiveness, time management, last year to when I first started to now, they're completely different of how efficient I am with processing, getting back to people, getting stuff done, making sure I don't miss anything. Sometimes I do, just it happens every once in a while. But with measuring success, you can't measure it with everybody on the exact same scale. It's different for everybody, every person out there that it can't just be ABC. It has to adapt to who that person is, what their skills are, and how kind of it kind of ties into their morals as well. And that's what I think personally on how you measure success. And that that is true. Graham, I like how you mentioned it. It does vary on each person's success and what they determine that is. From a programmatic standpoint, we try to put some parameters in place to help with that. So having a set of competencies in which the students are able to go through and we orient the businesses with which they've actually had input into those competencies as well. And much of what Melissa is speaking about, the related training, the education component, and so kind of outlining what that path may look like for some of those students to access those courses and what degrees or certifications it may lead to. And so that helps us kind of look at if the program is meeting those expectations is how well those students and the employers and even our educators are helping each person get through each step. You know, we do surveys to our employers and our apprentices to check on their satisfaction as well. I think it's important to hear what their satisfactory is at any point within the program for us to be able to know how to adjust or to continue the processes that are developed. You all have shared many helpful examples of how you've pivoted to adapt your programming in the spring and in the summer. And I know it's a bit cliche now to be saying that this crisis is presenting opportunities for innovation. But are there strategies that you have introduced in response to COVID that you'll preserve even as things start to go back to normal? Are there new approaches or processes that you think will make your program better in the long run that you've recently implemented because of COVID? For our new cohort, we implemented a asynchronous training, virtual trainings. Whereas before we were doing that all in person and live. And there are some live components to it. But yeah, providing that asynchronous opportunity for students to do pre-training prior to going into youth apprenticeship on communication, on ethics, on email, etiquette and communication, self-branding, self-advocacy, things like that. So we're, we have implemented that and are looking forward to continuing that as an option for students. And I'm pretty sure that our youth apprenticeship coordinator and specialist would tell you that they intend to continue doing virtual meetings with students and their families, the apprentices and their families on a regular basis, because they found out so helpful in just having that touch base. It can be requested by the family or it can be requested by the coordinator just to touch base and make sure that everything is going smoothly. And I do know that we were so successful with the virtual interview scenario with the health industry that we are entertaining doing virtual interviews with every industry sector that can be offered as an alternative to employers who find themselves extremely busy and not able to do necessarily interviews in person. And so it could be an alternative for them. It would not, and the other part of that is it also gives the student a taste of the interview before the employer might actually interview them should they choose to do that. So we think that that'll be an ongoing practice for us. Travis, is there anything you would add? How have you as an employer doing things differently now that you are not going to be quick to let go of when things are back to normal? Not necessarily, I guess what I would add would just be that I mean you guys, it sounds like you guys are doing your part to transition and change the program a little bit to accommodate current times. While it doesn't, it's not always necessarily for the employer to accommodate. It definitely helps with those partnerships and to get with the right companies and those companies in your community that take pride in and participating in community involvement because they're also going to help put into this program and they're going to help make it a success as well. It's not going to be one-sided. That's what I would have to add. I think that's a great addition. I know we're nearing the end of our session. We unfortunately won't get to all the questions. Maybe the last one that we could touch on is how have you helped the apprentice supervisors, teachers, and other mentors adapt to this current environment and continue to support apprentices? We just say that what we've done is to keep that constant communication stream going. You know trying to find out where there are issues or problems and then working collectively and collaboratively to address those. The communication I think has just been enhanced because we have had to be distant and it's interesting because it's almost like we're being brought closer within the distance that this virus has caused. Trying to stay abreast on the different ways to interact through technology, kind of trying to be the lead almost in that and that support because that is the way that we're able to stay connected. If we're able to set up an interview or to have a one-on-one meeting with the counselor and apprentice and employer to kind of be that focal point to bring that together through technology, it's definitely something that we're trying to keep at the forefront for us. I just want to thank our amazing panelists. Graham, thank you so much for carving time out of your very busy work and school day. Thank you Melissa and Brianna and Travis for sharing your perspectives as well. This is not easy work and you guys are doing it on a day-to-day basis under conditions that are very unusual and so really compliment you on your persistence and thank you for giving us a glimpse into what you all are doing and then hopefully we could take these lessons back to our own communities and apply them to make sure that we are elevating use apprenticeship as an equitable economic mobility strategy even in these very difficult times. So many thanks to you.


It's been a long time coming that I'm going to teach this course because ever since the beginning of my business coaching my marketing consulting, I've been working with clients on how to basically describe the work that they do to the public through their marketing. Now, I haven't taught this course before because I'll be honest with you. I have for a long time for those of you who have been following my content, you may remember or recall that for a long time I've been talking about how, you know, hold lightly to your professional title and the description of your work. I believe that still, and I still do it myself. And I still encourage clients to do it. However, I've been saying that same message for, gosh, probably, probably 10 years. And again and again and again. My ideal clients, the people who I love working with still come back and say, I understand George we got to hold lightly to what we do the description of our work, and yet it is unsent it's it feels ungrounded until we come to at least an initial description that resonates with us. And with our own audience. And so I've been kind of avoiding. Yeah, I've been avoiding it because I kept on being fixated on this idea of holding lightly to it. And, you know what, I'm following my own advice, my own marketing advice, which is to meet people where they're at. To, to not just give them what I think they need. But to give them what they want, while also delivering what I believe is truly helpful for them. So that's what this course is. And I'm excited for those of you who are watching this and who are interested in this course to perhaps take part in this experience with me and with the group of students, a bunch of students have already signed up as of this recording. So, looking forward to really creating a community, a little private course community around this. All right, so let me just let me explain how I am holding these two concepts of on the one hand. We are in is what I believe truly is we are infinitely. Our potential is infinite. And the work that you would consider to be your calling, or your authentic business is ever unfolding and always becoming clearer and clearer to you, as you continue to learn yourself, but also to work with your clients and discover. certain aspects of the work that you particularly love and certain aspects that you're not going to go more deeply into because it's it's not it doesn't light you up. So, the more you keep going in your business the more you learn about yourself and your work. And that's why on the one hand, we need to keep the lightness about our description so that we can continue evolving it. That's true.  You know, when you're getting introduced on a podcast and someone's interviewing you or, or you're introducing yourself to a group, you'll always have this kind of like driving with the brakes on feel. Like, you can't quite go into full flow. And so, I believe that it's possible to do the work in a sort of a focused and community based way, which I'll talk about shortly why I think this course experience is special to do the work of coming to a description of your work, your professional title, your about page, your bio your introduction, when people ask you so what do you do when potential clients ask you when potential colleagues and referral sources people who could refer business to you, ask you, hey, so tell us what you do tell me what you do for a living that you have an a response that that you really resonates with you that you're proud to say, and that resonates with the ideal client and the ideal colleague and they say oh wow, I want to know more. I want to learn more. I think it's possible to have both these things you have that description you do the work. You have the description and then at the same time you allow it to continue evolving. Because now you know how to do the work of setting it setting it down, right to at least have a grounded introduction. So, I'm really excited to walk you through to facilitate with for it for you and among a community, a series of exercises that will get you to that place that you for you feel grounded and resonant about your own description about your work.  So your bio, which is more of a shorter thing that you can put into, you know, at the end of articles or at the end of your sales pages or when you're being introduced on a podcast or something like that. So bio your about page, your homepage video we're also going to create that together. You'll be doing it along with everybody else doing it too and you'll be able to give each other feedback your homepage video. And I'm going to update mine finally it's been years but I'm going to use this course myself I always use my own techniques to update my homepage video as well based on the things that we're going to work together. And as well as your professional title, which is what goes into your LinkedIn headline, and also on your zoom video and I'm going to update my professional title to actually through this experience, it may it may change away from you know authentic business And, and then finally your media kit, what's a media kit, it sounds, it's a fancy phrase for basically a web page, it could be a webpage or it could be a PDF document or both. Mine's simply a webpage where I send this webpage on to people who want to interview me or bring me into teaching for their audience or whatever maybe where they can get some photos of me, you know, my, my, my chosen photos my bios. You know questions to ask me that kind of thing so it's a very practical course. Because like I said we're going to accomplish these, we're going to create these assets in your business in community. And so the community aspect. Let me talk about that and why I'm particularly excited about it. First of all, if you've ever tried doing this work of describing your, your, you know, your business and the deep and diverse work that you do, that's part of the, by the way that's part of this project as part of this course is it's the more you feel like it's hard to describe the depth and the breadth of your work. The more this course will be a revelation, I think. But even if you think you have a pretty good description, you may decide to join us and further refine all these things. But I know a lot of you, I've worked with a lot of you say it's hard to put the, the experience, the experiential nature of my work into words into an introduction, especially because you have been, you have studied multiple tools and fields, and to kind of integrate that together into a into a coherent and resonant description is quite a challenge if you've done it by yourself you know it's really really it can be really tough and isolating. And what's the option will usually you end up working with a copywriter, or a branding consultant, and they're wonderful to work with. Yet, they, you know, the ones that are quite experienced will charge you a couple thousand dollars to do this work, a couple thousand bucks do this work and I think it's reasonable for them to charge that to do this kind of integration and descriptive type of work. And yet, here's my, I have a few complaints about that I have friends who do this kind of work but I'll just say, it might not be the right fit for you if you number one say gosh a couple thousand dollars do this work sounds like a big investment. Okay, maybe I'll get Georgia's course which is a lot a lot less than that you can look below this video to see the price is a lot less than what you would work with a copywriter for number one number two. When you're working with a copywriter, you are pretty much just working with you and that person's opinion. Now, they might, if they're community minded might encourage you to do certain exercises to get feedback from your ideal clients and from your colleagues. Okay, from your niche mates even. And that's wonderful. And yet, it's you, you know, getting an assignment from the copywriter or the branding expert and then going to do the do the work. And just in this course, there's already a built in discussion area underneath each lesson in the underneath each exercise. We're going to we're going to do this work in a series of step by step exercises. So underneath each exercise you already have this kind of built in private discussion area where it's other people like you who are psychologically savvy, spiritually interested spiritually grounded spiritually passionate people, more heart based people people that I tend to draw into my audience, authentic business owners. Many of us are solopreneurs. We're both spirits, I would say. So you're in this, this wonderful private discussion area underneath each lesson and my, my course lessons are actually usually quite active in terms of the discussion so you get to find others, and I'm going to encourage the connections to actually give feedback to each other. So, instead of you having to go reach out and trying to get feedback, it's already you're, you're coming into this group of people who already want to give feedback to each other. And so you have a lots of potential colleagues here, maybe even some potential clients, but certainly some potential referral sources to your work. I have niche mates, you know people who share a similar niche probably I have a lot of in my groups typically there are a lot of people with coaching backgrounds with healing backgrounds mentoring consultants speakers facilitators and people who basically are working in the same way with personal development professional development, healing and transformation personal transformation so this is why I'm excited about this course it's not only a series of step by step exercises that I will motivate you inspire you with little short videos to to give you little short videos and you will be in this community, the private community of people to connect with and to discuss and people often say that the fellow students in my courses, getting to know them is well worth the price of admission, even with me whatever George says, right the exercises we do whatever, but the but the community that's focused on these topics and on these exercises so if this sounds genuinely exciting to you, and only if it does, then I hope you'll join us. And you can look, you know, on the script the course description page to find the price and all the other details about the course. I guess that I think it's a, I've priced it at a way that I think it's a really really good deal, compared to the alternative of doing this work with a good library writing expert or brandy consultant now they do amazing work to but maybe, maybe you will work with those people at some point but by doing this work first you're going to be a lot less frustrating for them to. Plus, you may decide that you don't need to you can just do it yourself going forward not yourself do it within a community of this because once you enroll in this course. There will be no time access to it, and there will be new people coming into this course on a regular basis and you'll get new potential feedback buddies and accountability buddies and niche mates potential referral sources so I really look forward to seeing you're going to join us for this and if you don't that's fine I really hope you have a way yourself that you enjoy of coming to a description of your introduction, you know that that you that you like, because obviously I'm not the only one who talks about the stuff so whether you learn it from me or from somebody else or learn it on your own I hope you have that way of describing yourself that feels good. That feels really right, and your gut that this is yes this is a good description for now of what I do. That's the key for now and it continues to evolve. There is no magic I'll save this one last thing before I go there's no magic formula for how to do it right. What I'm going to give you in this course is a series of exercises that I feel is the most reasonable way to go through with it, but throughout the course you'll also be encouraged I'll be encouraging you to yes do this exercise and if you find a different answer to this answer that feels right and you'll be seeing examples, lots of examples from your fellow students in the course that will might inspire you to doing it in a way that feels really right to you. So, anyway, you'll get lots of good guidance and helpful community in this thing, but whether or not you take it I really wish you well, and thank you so much for watching this and I look forward to seeing you in another video. Thank you.


large coffee with tube cream and a shot of espresso please thank you very much heroes you know yesterday I'll say it I'm kind of a hero I bring people their stuff every day what do we do without Tim's I have to go to Starbucks oh sorry don't mean to give you nightmares I'm just kidding I did a poll on my YouTube channel here you might have seen it a little while ago what's your favorite coffee I forgot to include flying J bean to cut or just flying J coffee because that's one of my favorites as well I can't believe I forgot it so maybe we'll do a new poll this weekend we'll add that one in there see if it wins but Tim's didn't win a lot of you are on the fence about Tim Horton's and I think that might be because you live in a part of the world where you have not experienced it yet and that is completely understandable completely understandable once you experience it your life changes forever the sky is bluer the winter is not quite as cold and you feel real pumped up radio but you have to add an espresso shot people always point out that you know I always talk about how great Tim's coffee is it's a Canadian staple it's a if you live in Canada chances are you're within walking distance of a Tim Horton's unless if you live in a rural community which is probably only about like a five-minute drive from the nearest importance there everywhere so it's kind of I guess cliche saying oh you're Canadian a gotta like Tim Horton's egg I like the hockey a yes yes I like them both I do I swear this guy in front of me ordered Thanksgiving dinner for the entire office in the drive-through one bag two bags three bags well there's a bunch of coffee coming in now if you don't order that much I would suggest you go inside but who am I to judge a lot of people are scared to go indoors in public places and they're also lazy no judgment there I'm in the drive-through I'm lazy to no judgment thank you see that's how long a transaction at a window is supposed to take but I am guilty of the same thing every now and then I go through the drive-through and I order a whole bunch of food no judgment like I said not judging saying just saying maybe all of us need to be a little more courteous sometimes some of us got things to do people are depending on me to bring them their stuff why don't you wake up earlier then try to dash hush you and your common sense stop that we don't need any of that right here they are here they are turn the lights off somebody's office is gonna be very happy this morning though everybody's getting Tim's today it's Friday Tim's for you Tim's for you Tim's for you everyone's going Oprah with Tim's cold weather is on the way can you see the sun dogs the polar vortex is coming yes the weatherman was right it's supposed to drop down tonight about minus 30 again probably about minus 50 with the windshield like that all next week Frankie I have big news do you want to go for a ride with mom go get your nails trimmed and you can scream like you're being murdered yeah give the ladies a hard time at Best West Pets do you want to go with mom for a car ride okay don't look too excited not you guys no not you guys just Frank oh my goodness oh so dramatic oh my goodness someone need a belly rub oh wiener you got to hold down the fort okay you got to take care of the house you guys too okay we'll be very very quick although the roads aren't very good so can you sit down for me Chevy hello oh hello someone wants to come diesel will you take care of the house I'll be I'll be back pretty quick see how much snow is out there whoa it's not quite a bit hey buddy let's go did you order all this snow did you are you looking for goodies I don't think you're gonna find many hey no you stay there I turned your your CT don should warm up pretty soon hey are you ready to go what a good boy other day in paradise southern Manitoba is it a beautiful day blowing snow that's blowing Manitoba spirit yes that's what we'll call it Manitoba spirit wasn't our slogan for a while spirited energy you see all that spirited energy flowing across the road look at that sun dog off on the left there you see that that's not the sun that's that's the sun dog that's going all the way around the sun off to my life hide in the house up the heat and watch a good movie all weekend a couple of good movies he's got something behind her I continue going right now I would end up in the United's waiting for a few things get sorted out on the pike there I think you'll see you'll see you and the highway 206 is it and we're gonna head directly into this wind I turn right go directly into it headed west towards Rosenart 206 we're now headed westbound now it looks like the wind is coming out of them guess that explains all the cold weather on the way for us so thanks guys up there I'm wonderful polar vortex with us again we have arrived best west pets the newest pet store in Steinbach and someone is very excited he hates getting his nails done but he loves getting a special treat at the end or a toy so he knows he's smart as a whip this guy hey buddy yeah excited should we go in we're a little early we're 12 minutes early dude do you think they'll accept us we'll probably have to see the good people when we get back in the car cuz I don't think they'll let us film in there and even if they do they wouldn't be able to understand me with a mask on so let's do it let's go I think while I'm in there I'm going to get diesel a new frog and maybe a couple other cheap toys because our dogs destroy toys way too quick for us to spend an arm and a leg on them so let's hope that there's some deals or we'll just get the cheapy squeaker toys okay I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm taking too long okay stop shaking it's not cold you're you're seats heated man look at that a almost all the way around the Sun has beautiful but it's also kind of ominous better get out your winter park because if you haven't by now I don't know why you wouldn't have by now but it's about to get real cool the way that works though it have you ever seen these excuse me sir oh you know you know got you a treat and a toy this time get out of there let me get your treat oh look look don't tell your brothers it's turkey something that they're not allowed to have because of Chevy's allergies oh my goodness this is for being such a good boy and not biting the lady although you did scream pull it oh you got half of it oh is that noms you earned it buddy enjoy oh turkey lurky so good so scrumptily umptious thankfully his nails don't grow very quick so I only need to get them done like every 10 or 12 weeks thank goodness because that is so traumatic for him I feel so bad for the people cutting his nails also for him he's old there's no breaking this trauma and this this anxiety so whatever we got it done now we don't need to do it for another like two and a half months today really seemed to fly by it's minus 19 right now and it's supposed to go down even further tonight yet let's see we're looking at only minus 27 tonight minus 34 tomorrow and Monday tomorrow and Sunday with the warmest part of the day only being at minus 27 on Sunday that's without the windshield that's wonderful the windshield right now is minus 31 so it's wintertime here the coldest part of the year in Manitoba is the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February after that starts warming up for spring by the time my birthday rolls around on April 1st we usually got maybe a few small piles of snow lying around but the grasses start to turn green the time may gets here the trees and flowers start to bloom and then June comes and all the fields start growing everything turns green June is one of my favorite times years not as hot as July and August but wish it lasted longer one day I'll be retired and every winter I'm gonna go and hang out in Florida with all the other snowbirds I'm gonna play bingo every day it's gonna be great naturally being the amazing mama that I am toot in my own horn I have to get some new toys diesel oh my goodness what you got Chevy you got a dino wow everybody's happy you're just waiting to swoop in and take everybody's toys we know you got a dino Frankie there's nothing else you got well Brit and the boys kind of commandeered the vlog today I'm okay with that where's everybody where's everybody hey oh there's the weasel Brits at work right now while I'm closing this up but I asked her to film a little bit during the day when she can while I'm at work I'd really like this to be a more of a vlog about our life together and not just my life all the time but anyways Frankie got his nails done as you saw he's all pretty now apparently it was quite a scene I didn't know what she didn't tell me that it was the apparently a little difficult to get his nails clipped that's why we bring him to the professional because he doesn't like getting his nails clipped at all and they all got new toys by the time I got home they were all mostly destroyed but I got to play with them a little bit so that was fun they saved some for me Brits at work right now and it's just those boys at home now don't look so excited everybody don't look so excited we're all sad soon as Brit leaves the house especially Weiner soon as she leaves the house he gets all sad mmm poor Weiner needs his mom and the big guys aren't here you guys have fun did mom bring you new toys did she huh that's pretty nice of her right that's pretty nice yeah you never bring us new toys man to which mom she used to bring her toys it's true I know I guess I've got to step up my game if I want to be the favorite so thanks for watching everybody I really appreciate you being here don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already we make new videos pretty much every day you can follow us on our daily lives as we get through this crazy world we're in along with you we're from Manitoba Canada if that's if you're wondering if you're new I probably should have said this at the beginning I've got to create some kind of an intro that sort of introduces us to you guys and to you new viewers right off the bat so you know who we are but yeah we live in in Manitoba Canada that's just above eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota for you Americans and the rest of the world you know where Manitoba is right it's right in the center of Canada technically we're considered western Canada but center prairies and prairie boy right on the eastern edge of the prairies though some kind of a bush boy and a prairie boy at the same time I'm right on the edge where the the tree line turns into open prairies and farmland I'm filming this ending portion on the Saturday hope you guys are having a great weekend and we'll see you tomorrow