Boys and Girls Club adds virtual reality career readiness training
Athletic activities are often the first thing that comes to mind when the Boys and Girls Club is mentioned.
But the Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club continues to make workforce readiness a bigger part of its focus, and that initiative recently got a significant boost through a $10,000 grant from West Bend Insurance Agency, which presented its Spirit of the Silver Lining Award to EM Ford insurance agency and Reisz Hayden for his work with the club, of which he is a former board member and volunteer.
“(Reisz) called one day and said (West Bend Insurance) was rolling out a grant, and he asked what to write it for,” said Ryan Bibb, chief operating officer of the Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club of how the club was chosen to receive the grant money. “It’s the largest grant that West Bend had ever allocated to anyone in the state of Kentucky.”
The money was used to purchase the Transfr virtual software that goes onto an Oculus virtual-reality headset. The software allows kids to try out about 30 career paths — including electrical lineman to EMT to HVAC, among others — using virtual reality to get simulated hands-on experience.
“They’re able to really interact in these different ways with that software,” Bibb said. “And the cool thing about it that makes it little different than most is we can track what they’re participating in, how long they’re participating in it, how well they’re doing — and they have a vote in how well they like each profession.
“So then we’re able to look at it, and say ‘club member A really likes the trades,’ so we can kind of tailor a plan for him or her to say, ‘This is where we feel like you would be most successful going forward.’ Then with partnerships with the community college and things like that, we can kind of take it a step further and apply real-life application to what they’re doing here setting the groundwork.”
Bibb said the club had been looking at adding the software to its Life and Workforce Readiness Room for a while, waiting for the funds to become available.
“It’s something we felt we would be able to get a grant or a meaningful contribution to purchase,” he said. “It wasn’t really something we wanted to purchase out of the club operating funds. Because of what we’re doing and the strategic direction we’re taking to serve teens and serve them effectively, especially for workforce and career readiness, we knew at some point the dominoes were going to fall and we’d get the funds to purchase it. And then the $10,000 was the final domino.”
Everyone classified as a teenager at the club — ages 12 to 18 — will have access to the program, including those at the Butler County, Ohio County and Henderson clubs. Bibb said the software training is offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
While Bibb is excited about the benefits the teenagers will get from using the software, he’s also seen it grab the attention of kids who will be old enough to participate in the program in the coming years.
“The biggest thing for us is it’s allowed us to really plant the seed for the youngest kids we have,” Bibb said. “The teens now, they love it. It’s hard for us to go out and recruit, for lack of a better term, a 15 or 16 year old to come into the Boys and Girls Club. No one wakes up and says, ‘Hey, I want to learn about this or that and I want to do it at the Boys and Girls Club.’ They may not know the resources are available. But the younger kids, when they look through the glass and see this is the stuff going on in the teen room, it makes that sell so much easier to them, a 10 or 11 year old, that this is all of the fun things that they’re doing.”
The club’s emphasis on bolstering its career skills training began in 2020, when the COVID pandemic began.
“We said we’re serving kids, so have to make a greater impact on the kids we’re serving, to hone in on what our goal is,” Bibb said. “We said we have to start with the teens, since those are the ones getting ready to take the next step, step out into society. So we did this whole strategic plan, restructured the teen room and added on to the teen room. We received two or three sizable grants to create space, which helped us tremendously, helped us put our plan into action.”
The club now offers 3D printers where kids learn to code computers, which also allows them to learn how to code robots to perform vertical and horizontal tasks. The club also has an e-sports room and a music recording studio. The teenagers also take field trips to the community college and area businesses.
Bibb said the Transfr virtual software program will enhance the teenagers’ on-site experience.
“This really provides that next step of a hands-on application, where we can take them out to an HVAC contractor or electrician or EMT, but to get hands-on experience in something like that is not as likely as what they can do with a virtual headset within the confines of the club, where staff members can help them through the process. And the course walks them through every step. There’s a voice that comes along with it, like it’s instructor led.”
Bibb said career readiness is part of the Boys and Girls Club of America’s ‘Operation Impact’ strategy, and he’s excited about the foundation in place to continue to build on the initiative.
“Now we want to take what our kids have learned inside the room we have built for them at all of our locations, and then take that out,” he said. “We’re trying to strategically align ourselves with members of the community college who we have a great relationship with. And now we have some board members that are involved so we can create a real-life application to what they’re learning here. We lay the foundation, then turn it over to the experts. They have a foundation of knowing what it looks like, how is it applied in the real world, then taking it to the next step. That’s the whole premise of the program. You get as close to the real thing as you possibly can.
“We’ve already seen the dividends it’s paying in the three months we’ve had it, and we look forward to August (and school starting) to really roll it out.”