EMS Corps: Shifting Agency and Power in Health Care
About
Young people who have experienced adversity can be among the most competent healers, protectors, and lifesavers in a community, yet they are historically underrepresented in the emergency medical services (EMS), fire service agencies, and allied health workforce. This webinar will focus on how the EMS Corps program combines rigorous emergency medical technician (EMT) training with counseling, healing circles, professional development, and an earned stipend to train young people facing barriers to employment, including people in foster care and involved with the justice system, for careers in health care and fire service agencies.
Learning Objectives
- Identify barriers to careers in health care and fire service agencies that disproportionately affect young people of color
- Learn about a program that has become a national model for addressing a crisis-level shortage of EMS workers, while providing career paths for young people historically underrepresented in the care economy
- Discuss reframing adversity and lived experience as powerful assets
- Discuss the integration of wraparound supports in workforce development programs
Professional Credit
- This activity provides the following types of credit: AMA, AAPA, APA, ANCC, ASWB, ABIM-MOC, ABP-MOC.
- 1.0 credits are available.
- Activity document
Featuring
Michael Gibson is Public Works Alliance's (PWA) Chief Program Officer for EMS Corps and the current Executive Director for Alameda County EMS Corps. He has more than 25 years of experience in violence prevention, workforce and leadership development, transformative mentoring, and juvenile justice and provides technical assistance and training to community-based organizations and foundations focused on improving equitable outcomes for underserved communities. Overcoming hardship as a young person in Oakland, Mike has firsthand experience with the barriers many young people face as they seek employment in fields with upward mobility. A graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in public management and policy analysis from California State University, East Bay. He also received a Professional Coaching for Life and Work certificate from the University of California, Davis, and a Professional Coaching Credential from the International Coach Federation.
Prior to founding Public Works Alliance (PWA), Alex was the Executive Director of the California Children’s Trust, a three-year initiative focused on health equity and healthy development for California’s children, youth, and families, and the Chief Executive of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, one of California’s largest public health systems. In his 12 years with the agency, he managed a budget of more than a billion dollars that included one of the nation’s highest volume 911 systems, multiple general acute care hospitals, public health services, and more than $200 million in child and adolescent mental health services and contracts. Before joining Alameda County, Alex was the director of the Chappell Hayes Health Center at McClymond’s High School in West Oakland, a satellite outpatient center of Children’s Hospital and Research Center. He has designed and administered mental health and physical health programs and services in child serving systems, including home visiting programs, programs for medically fragile children, and clinical and development programs in child welfare, juvenile justice, and early childhood settings. Alex has served on the Alameda County First Five Commission, The Alameda Alliance, and The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and The Uninsured, along with other public and private boards and commissions. He has specialized experience in Medicaid policy and administration, emergency medical services, youth voice and crisis counseling, and safety net design and administration.