Allan Appel Photo
Javon St. Clair took Charles Stevenson’s vital signs Tuesday morning. On Wednesday he’ll take a written test on the cardiovascular and lymphatic systems. On Thursday the two men will practice drawing each other’s blood in a full scale lab on site. Then, in 18 more weeks, the aspiring phlebotomists hope to step into full-time jobs with a real future.
The two are part of the first wave of 100 unemployed and underemployed adults whom the new Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT) hope train in phlebotomy and medical coding and billing each year.
Tracey Branch and Charles Stevenson at ConnCAT phlebotomy classroom.
Tuesday morning the city’s latest major effort to get the unemployed into a gainful “jobs pipeline” was drawing positive reviews from the first 14 aspiring phlebotomists and 16 medical coders into their second week of intensive training at the art-and-technology-filled facility at 4 Science Park.
Click here for an article on the vo-tech and urban arts model on which ConnCAT is based, and the dollars and know-how that have brought it to life in New Haven. The center opened in Science Park in April. It’s one of several major efforts in town to build a “jobs pipeline” to connect city people to jobs in the New Haven’s growing biomedical economy.
St. Clair called the program “an awesome opportunity” for someone like him with a passion for helping other people. Stevenson, a 38-year-old part time carpenter who has been thinking about his body getting older, said deep down he also has wanted to help people while he moves into a job with growth and security.
Right before the lunch break in the 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. day, St. Clair and seat mate Tracey Branch were at the books and the computers. St. Clair was making sure he could define “adenoids,” “apex” of the lung, and “alveolus.” (For those of you not up on your respiratory anatomy, that’s the air sac in the lung.)
At the suggestion of tteacher Arceola Fair-Goin, the students had voted by a large majority that they wanted to skip drawing blood from mannequins and go to real human beings. Namely, each other.
Phlebotomy student Tracey Branch with training “dummies.”
“I want a live person. I want to know if I’m hurting them,” said Branch.
In all the program’s first class has 30 adults, 14 studying phlebotomy and 16 enrolled in medical billing and coding. The phlebotomists have 16 weeks of classes and four weeks of “externships.” Those are placements at places like Yale-New Haven Hospital that organizers hope will turn into jobs. The medical billers’ “externships” last eight weeks.
These 30 students were selected out of more than 100 applicants. Some 90 percent are from New Haven. The adult students all needed to either have a high school sheepskin or a G.E.D. Most importantly, based on an interview and a literacy/numeracy test, “these are people who could do a lot more with their lives,” said program director Genevive Walker.
All the teaching and services are free to the students. The phlebotomy students have to pay only for their state certification exams, about $90.
ConnCAT chief Erik Clemons with phlebotomy student Kiana McCoy.
Even those who did not get into the program’s first wave get help: 15 of the applicants who didn’t pass the academic part of the entrance are being provided tutoring by Literacy Volunteers.
“The idea is people will stay in house and head down the hallway [to the phlebtomy, lab, for example, when they are ready]. We will not dismiss anybody because of a test,” said ConnCAT Executive Director Erik Clemons.
Harlem Renaissance Coming Soon
Frank Brady, Kenya Robinson, Latisha Claxton, with Erik Clemons and Genevive Walker in background.
Meanwhile down the hall from the medical training, in an airy classroom, dancer Latisha “Nikki” Claxton (who teaches at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School) was talking about Josephine Baker and Billy “Bojangles” Robinson with performance artist and Yale MFA sculptor Kenya Robinson.
They prepared to teach kids, not adults.
Claxton was planning a performance “score” based on the five senses while her colleague, poet Frank E. Brady, was devising a curriculum so that the 30 lucky kids enrolled in ConnCAT’s summer camp will be able to make the cultural link between Biggie Smalls, Common, and Dead Presidents, and Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Zora Neale Hurston.
The Harlem Renaissance-themed full-day summer camp, which emphasizes self expression and writing, begins July 9 with 30 7th- through 9th-graders. It’s a precursor to the after-school program for 100 kids that ConnCAT is launching in the fall.
Clemons said ConnCAT chose the Harlem Renaissance as a theme because black kids need to “see themselves within an historical narrative. People off the heels of slavery created a vibrant community, so black people could be heard.”
“And defined,” said Walker. “You create a beautiful space, you do beautiful things with people, and expect beautiful things of them.”
Parents wishing to apply for a spot for their kids in the summer program can pick up an application in the lobby of ConnCAT’s 4 Science Park building on Winchester Avenue, visit the website, or email a request .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).