Community colleges, which traditionally furnish graduates with two-year associate degrees and serve as academic springboards to four-year universities, also offer opportunities for students interested in learning skills that can quickly lead to a wide variety of jobs.
For example, Santiago Canyon College offers a comprehensive array of courses and apprenticeship programs in everything from environmental management, cosmetology and biotechnology to water conservation, real estate appraisal and an impressive range of carpentry specialties.
As part of SCC’s ongoing focus on job readiness, the college has launched a number of new workforce-training efforts and has several more on the horizon.
“We’re constantly evolving in workforce training because the needs of the workforce are shifting, and we’re trying to be responsive to that,” said Denise Foley, Santiago Canyon College’s dean of Business and Career Education.
One new program, which will train students to work as emergency medical technicians, is slated to begin early next year. SCC has partnered with the Falck Health Institute, an Orange-based group that employs certified emergency medical services educators and clinicians — all with vast experience as EMTs, paramedics and nurses — who teach real-world skills in a state-of-the-art facility.
The EMT course goes beyond fulfilling the certification requirements for national, state and county emergency medical services authorities, furnishing two additional courses produced by the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians: EMS Safety and Geriatric Education for EMS.
“We’re the only program that we know of in Southern California that offers these two specialized classes,” said Michael Kaduce, director of the Falck Health Institute. “When we met with Santiago Canyon College, we said that this isn’t something every EMT course includes. But we believe they’re a priority for the students.”
students for careers in emergency medical services. (Photo courtesy of RSCCD Communications)
Two course options will be available: an accelerated five-week program, four days a week, all on-site; and an 11-week hybrid program, geared for busy workers and full-time students, that includes Zoom lectures two nights a week and on-site skills classes every Sunday.
“When we think of health care, we think of doctors and nurses, but there are so many other things available in health care,” Kaduce said. “And this EMT course is one of the fastest ways to get an entry-level health care job.”
EMT students at Santiago Canyon College who complete the basic course can also earn a certificate of achievement, said Foley, by taking two additional classes: Stress Management and Interpersonal Communication. It’s part of SCC’s goal to better prepare future EMTs for a stressful job.
On the subject of communication skills, Kaduce said, “These EMTs are going to be talking to people who are very sick or injured, and we’re trying to give them the skills to be able to communicate with those patients. I can teach you all the book stuff, but nowhere in the book does it say, ‘Here’s how you use your language to be compassionate or empathetic.’”
One key asset that benefits EMT students is the Falck Health Institute itself.
“We just renovated an 11,000-square-foot building,” Kaduce said. “Our classrooms include elements that you’d expect in a college classroom. One of the most important things in EMS education is simulation space, which re-creates an environment similar to what our providers will experience out in the field. When our students step out of the classroom and go in the back of an ambulance, it won’t be the first time they’ve run a call.
“We can use our classrooms and our training space to simulate the back of an ambulance. We can use it to simulate a patient’s living room. We can go outside to simulate responding to a motor vehicle collision in the street. …”
In addition, the students do a total of 24 ride-along hours with experienced Falck EMTs, Kaduce said. “We’re preparing them as well as we can to go into the real world and be ready to work.”
EMT certification can lead to many other opportunities in health care. “Those who want to become a physical therapist, nurse or physician’s assistant may want to first work in the field,” Foley said. “So working as an EMT while continuing an education is valuable to them. Or they might decide to be a paramedic or firefighter, so they do the EMT certification first, and then they continue with their education.”
SCC Workforce Training’s ongoing focus in job readiness has resulted in the creation of new options in bookkeeping and community management, as well as a slew of others slated to begin in the near future: a Spanish preschool teaching certificate, a general electrician program, an environmental health technician pathway and a 911 emergency dispatch certificate, among others.
“And we’re really excited about this EMT partnership with Falck,” Foley said. “We think it’s going to be great for our students and for our region.”