Role Call

NaviGo empowers middle and high school students to determine their talents, strengths and aptitudes to help them create personalized career plans for their futures. Those plans might include a four-year degree, a two-year degree, a trade school, or immediate entry into the workforce.

“Students may have aptitudes for careers they may not even know exist,” says NaviGo Executive Director, Dr. Kathy Burkhardt. “Allowing students to find out who they are helps them determine what they want to do with their lives. Through career exposure, exploration and industry sector work-based learning experiences, students can figure out what careers match their interests, talents and aptitudes and which ones that don’t.”

Dr. Burkhardt says both are equally important so that students do not waste time and money after high school pursuing a career they later find out they hate.

As they say, this work takes a village and everyone plays a role in helping our youth determine their future plans. NaviGo partners with schools through the Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services to help provide individualized coaching and work-based learning opportunities and resources to member school districts (which include just about every school district in Northern Kentucky). That partnership helps NaviGo stay informed about student needs while trying to assist schools in the many student-focused college and career efforts they already have in place. Combined with the work of many regional partners and businesses through GROW NKY (Growing Regional Outcomes through Workforce), that creates a powerful collective impact aimed at strengthening the regional workforce pipeline.

The overall goal is to create work-based learning experiences and industry-specific training for high school students that offer viable careers upon graduation. NaviGo NKY College and Career Connector Lorraine O’Moore says this will also reduce Northern Kentucky’s population of “Opportunity Youth,” a national term that applies to the 6,000 Northern Kentuckians ages 16-24 currently not in school or working. O’Moore says her connection with the students is the most rewarding aspect of her role.

John Braden, who facilitates NaviGo Career Services and works directly with opportunity youth students agrees.

“Working with students and helping them make career connections is extremely rewarding,” says Braden. “The work also fits within the framework of goals outlined by GROW NKY, which seeks to leverage the region’s assets to ‘grow, attract and retain a globally competitive workforce.’”

The efforts of GROW NKY Partners have also created an online work-based learning platform called MyCareerE3 to assist students in locating career-based learning opportunities provided by businesses in the region.

Jennie LaMothe, NaviGo’s Director of Coaching and Operations, states that YouScience is an indispensable tool in assisting students in the Northern Kentucky region and calls it a game changer for students. The YouScience assessment uncovers students’ aptitudes and then connects their aptitudes and interests to real in-demand careers. “YouScience builds hope by providing students with impactful feedback about their own strengths and aptitudes,” LaMothe says.

Collaborate & Listen

One educator that has seen the value of NaviGo’s programs is Chad D. Molley, Superintendent of ErlangerElsmere Schools. Molley says his district’s middle and high school students use YouScience as part of their individualized learning plans, and juniors and seniors use the MyCareerE3 platform to explore careers via work-based learning opportunities. Smaller groups of students have also used NaviGo’s Career Services program, Molley noting two Lloyd Memorial students who have recently connected with one of the company’s careers coaches and a local business mentor.

“The services provided by NaviGo are an integral part of our GROW NKY Pillar 2 goal that seeks to align and communicate community resources to provide a variety of meaningful opportunities for exposure, exploration, and experience in high-demand workforce sectors including construction, logistics, IT, healthcare and manufacturing and the foundational industries of early childhood and education,” he says. “Through our collaboration with NaviGo we can fulfill our goal and do our part to meet GROW NKY’s mission.”

Lois Post, BSN, RN and Manager of Health Career Programs at the Office of Workforce Development at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, agrees.

“NaviGo has a unique vantage point in that they make direct connections with students and employers in real-time. The organization has a recognized and trusted relationship with the high schools; schools from which we choose students to participate in our healthcare work-based learning programs,” Post says. “NaviGo simultaneously listens to us as an employer, focusing on our evolving workforce needs. The result? Collaboratively, we provide relevant work-based learning programs for students interested in a healthcare pathway while expanding the pipeline to meet our current and future needs.”

Shannon Starkey-Taylor, CEO of NaviGo’s parent company Learning Grove, is extremely proud of the work the company has done. While she acknowledges that NaviGo could operate in its own bubble, she says partnering with schools and businesses is better for all parties involved.

“Although I wasn’t the founder, I humbly say that NaviGo was a gift to the region. If there are people that have not experienced NaviGo and they want that ‘in’ to Northern Kentucky, we are always looking for partners because our impact is made via the partnerships,” she says. “Businesses all need someone to help connect people to them and we serve as that college and career connector. If we continue to honor everyone's role and collaborate, we'll get the outcomes our region desperately needs.”

Making the Grade

NaviGo was founded by Tim Hanner in 2011. Tim retired from NaviGo in 2018, and much like a parent watching their child grow into adulthood, Hanner is “extremely proud” to see all the progress NaviGo has made since its creation. “I urge businesses, schools and parents to check out the work NaviGo is doing because they’re filling a huge need.”

To learn more about NaviGo and how NaviGo services might assist your student, school or business. visit www. navigoprep.org NKY