The Linda and Tony Bakker Career Center, serves both young people in our residential programs and community foster care with education, life skills, leadership and career technology programs.
In serving young people in foster care in 2012 and beyond, we have created programs to prepare them for successful transitions to independence. These approaches are described as: Bakker LIFE, Leadership for LIFE, Mentor for LIFE, Bakker Summer BizCamp, Bakker Ambassadors, Digital Connectors and LIFE Transitions Through Technology. We are implementing a system that would transition young people from foster care prepared for adulthood, ready to compete in a global economy and prepared for advocacy on behalf of self and their community.
- Bakker LIFE is an after-school program that provides CYDC residents a seamless learning experience that offers academic mastery in reading and math, homework support, and career readiness training. The center features eight real life worksites that include a Bank, Graphic Arts, Automotive, Library/Bookstore, Retail Store, Garden, Culinary Arts and Healthcare training.
- Leadership for LIFE
- Mentor for LIFE The involvement of business partners and community mentors in preparing our youth for life after foster care makes a significant difference in exposing them to “real world” expectations and providing the support they are lacking in terms of family. Role models and potential employers help young people realize their unique abilities and their potential to achieve their dreams.
- Bakker Summer BizCamp is a six week program, offering young people in the Tri-County area workforce readiness, computer literacy and engineering
technology training. The program targets those students with an individualized educational plan (IEP), are behind a grade level and/or who have been identified as needing reading and math support. The program is led by a certified teacher with the assistance of qualified technical and academic staff.
Work Sites — Eight on-campus work sites offer our young people the opportunity to develop real job skills and navigate real workplace experiences. These sites are run and managed by the student site leaders with Bakker Center staff offering support and supervision. Through the authentic work-site environment, young people develop both the hard and soft skills necessary to succeed in their future: from customer service and tracking income and expenses, to punctuality and accountability.
- Bakker Ambassadors are the top performing Bakker Career Center students. These top achievers are invited on an Ambassadors’ Journey — the trip of a lifetime to recognize their accomplishments throughout the program. This opportunity will engage, motivate and excite young people in their learning and challenge students to demonstrate their leadership skills by using new competencies to plan and implement the goals of the Ambassadors’ Journey. Students will return with a renew level of confidence to meet their life goals, and the knowledge of their responsibility to their local, regional and global communities.
- Digital Connectors
- LIFE Transitions through Technology
Offering the staff of the Bakker Career Center advice on funding and programs is the Bakker Advisory Council, a dedicated group of volunteers representing industries such as education, professional services, hospitality and more. Currently lead by Wilbur Johnson of Young Clement Rivers & Tisdale, the group meets bi-monthly to discuss matters of importance to the Bakker Center.