The Workforce Development Board Mid-Ohio Valley (WDB-MOV) is building classroom-to-career pathways for students and job seekers who will be the future of industries in the region. The board, which serves nine counties in West Virginia, takes a multifaceted approach to workforce development and has built strong partnerships with Transfr, the Building and Trades Council, and in local high schools. The team at WDB-MOV takes a hands-on approach to career exploration and training, leveraging Transfr simulations. VR simulations empower workforce professionals to serve the population without specialized equipment or access to expensive facilities. Since partnering with Transfr, the Board has reached 1,468 distinct users (both virtual skills training and career exploration), who have completed over 4,173 simulations.
WDB-MOV is a hub for a variety of vital programs aimed at helping increase employment in the area, serving adult and dislocated workers as well as youth. All are designed to help people with specific employment barriers enter the workforce.
Our partnership with Transfr allows us to engage secondary students as well as adults, and share with them a vast variety of career opportunities. They re able to explore their own pathways while leveraging relationships with the skilled trades. The individuals that we serve get hands on reinforcement along with their virtual reality experiences. Everyone enjoys an improved ability to choose their path as opposed to settling when it comes to making career decisions. At the end of the day, this is a true economic development initiative.
In an attempt to intensify their outreach efforts with local youth, WDB-MOV also ran a highly successful CTE Explore Camp. This week-long camp focused on expanding knowledge of trade jobs for incoming 9th and 10th graders who might consider going into Career and Technical Education programs. In addition to daily spotlight speakers who shared their career journeys with students, there was a variety of other content to help them make decisions about their classroom-to-career pathways. Students were directed to various Transfr career exploration simulations based on their expressed interests, but were also given the freedom to engage with any other sims during their Transfr headset sessions.
The camp was evidence that students are hungry for interactive instruction. By creating a multi-faceted approach to creating career awareness, students can see first hand the importance of math and science and how they directly relate to the world of work, a future that the students will soon find themselves in the midst of.
The camp was an immense success! Initially the board aimed to serve 25 high school students; however, interest was through the roof with 52 students completing the voluntary week event.
By the end of the program, the impact of Transfr’s VR career exploration simulations combined with hands-on content and stories from actual trade workers was evident. When students were asked “Has your career plan changed after this week?” 21% of respondents said yes!
