Youth, young adults learn soft skills for careers

LIMA — Twenty-eight youth and young adults participated in the first-ever “Soft Skills for Career Success: Presenting Your Best Self” workshop for ages 13 to 21 Saturday at The Hub at Central District. The workshop featured presenters from some of the career paths Lima has to offer, including education, trade skills and healthcare.

Presenters included Margie Anich, a lecturer at The Ohio State University Lima Department of Theatre; Chris Henderson, the owner of Steady Does It Mechanical Services; Ashley Heaphy, the development and acquisitions sales and marketing manager at Primrose Retirement Communities; Amy Nusbaum, the senior communications manager at Marathon; Rachel Richardson, the career services coordinator at OSU Lima; Dr. Ryan Schwieterman, an internal medicine specialist at Mercy Health in Lima; and Tara Shepherd, the director of adult education at Apollo Career Center.

Shepherd was one of the professionals involved in Heartland Image Foundation, which organized the workshop. She works with the regional business industry and has heard the need for employees to have soft skills that can be applicable to all aspects of life, like being on time, having good communication skills, being self-aware, and recognizing boundaries.

“The goal of this is to really integrate this into different training programs, whether that’s in schools, in the workplace, or just constant awareness because the more that we do it, the more we apply these skills and really see how it can transfer to every part of our lives, the more emphasis we place on it, the more success we’re going to actually get,” Shepherd said.

Henderson also discussed why bringing a workshop like this to Lima was important and what people thought about kids going into trade skills when he was in high school.

“I went to Shawnee High School, and Apollo was one building back then, and all the bad kids went there, but now we’re learning the difference of the way people think,” Henderson said. “I went to college and I accrued a lot of debt because that wasn’t the way that I wanted to go, but I didn’t know what was available.”

The Heartland Image Foundation, led by president Nick Kellis, formed through a grant from the Allen County Metropolitan Development Corp. It was the first workplace development project at The Hub at Central District, which partnered with the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce Foundation on the event.

In one session called “Leadership & Collaboration: A Team Project Mentality,” Henderson and Schwieterman brought together an unlikely career grouping — trade skills and healthcare — with the same message of what a good leader looks like and how to work together as a team.

They started by letting the participants work together to try to put together a pipe and perform CPR with no direction, then the participants were assigned roles and given guidance and advice by Henderson and Schwieterman.

“We have to be able to align our purpose, look at the problems together, be on the same page, put our egos aside and collectively conquer it together,” Schwieterman said.

Just as some of the participants didn’t know each other and had to work in a team, Schwieterman and Henderson met for the first time at the workshop and had to do the same.

Kynnsington Green, one of the workshop participants and a freshman at Shawnee High School, discussed how the workshop will help her and her peers. She thought Henderson’s backstory and work was inspiring.

“If you aren’t sure of yourself right now, this will definitely help you in the future. I have a bunch of friends my age, we’re all going into high school, that’s a big step. This will definitely help me feel more sure of myself and steady and not so stressed like some people,” Green said. “I know people that are more underprivileged, and they have a harder time expressing themselves, they don’t know who they are, and I feel like things like these with mentors could definitely improve their sense of self and how they feel about themselves and make them better.”

Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.