‘There’s no limit’: KC teens learn about healthcare careers at Awesome Ambitions event

About a dozen girls stood around a table in Lab C inside Research Medical Center as Rona Roberts, the hospital’s nurse manager for labor and delivery, showed them how to properly swaddle a baby.

One by one, the girls held up their hospital blankets, awaiting the instructor’s approval. Then they placed the demonstration baby on their blankets and tucked each corner, securing the infant gently.

The exercise this week wasn’t training for future motherhood but was instead an opportunity to practice and learn as potential future nurses.

The girls participating in Friday’s workshop are members of Awesome Ambitions, a nonprofit organization that sponsored the event with the HCA Midwest Health Black Colleague Network.

The workshop is among the opportunities for education, training and exposure that Awesome Ambitions seeks to provide for girls enrolled at Kansas City Public Schools. About 180 girls are enrolled in the program, according to Awesome Ambitions Vice President Denise White.

On Friday, about 30 teenagers from Kansas City Public Schools attended the workshop, which was advertised as an opportunity “to provide exposure to various healthcare careers,” in the college of nursing at Research Medical Center, 2316 E Meyer Blvd.

Organizers also sought to inspire the young women, mostly African American, by having the workshop and training conducted by successful women in the medical field who look like them.

Empowering teenage girls

Awesome Ambitions, founded in 1997 by Cynthia Newsome and Angela Curry, seeks to educate, inspire, and empower teenage girls in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. Newsome said her catalyst in creating the organization was a rise then in teenage pregnancy and also troubling school dropout rates.

“The teen pregnancy rate and the dropout rate at Kansas City Public Schools was over the moon,” she recalled in a recent interview. “I was like what…they’re dropping out? What are they doing?”

The teen birth rate nationally has steadily declined since 1991, according to a 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

According to data published by Kansas City Public Schools, the most recent graduation rate is 74.9%, which is lower than the national average at 87%.

There is also evidence that mental health challenges among teen girls is on the rise which, for the founders of Awesome Ambitions, shows the continued need for their program.

From the classroom to the lab

Once a month on Fridays, students from Kansas City Public Schools and Hickman Hill School District attend Awesome Ambitions educational sessions during school hours.

White, the vice president, believes being active in the school system and lives of teen girls will promote attendance in school.

This Friday’s event at the medical center was an outing to provide exposure to the array of careers in the medical field.

During the workshop, the young women listened to lectures and explored labs in the medical center. In the labs, they received training on swaddling, how to transfer patients to beds, dressing techniques for patients with paralysis, and other skills.

Inside Lab D, Skylah Canady, 15, put a white ping pong in a purple balloon and blew, inflating it halfway. Once the balloon was filled, the facilitator instructed the students to center the ping pong ball at the neck of the balloon. They held their balloons, squeezing in and out with both hands until the ball fell, simulating, according to their facilitator, birth contractions.

After the demonstration, Skylah said that learning about contractions was her favorite session. She’s been a member of Awesome Ambitions for a year and hopes to become a registered nurse.

“When the ball is at the bottom of the balloon with every push the contractions start to get bigger, which is how the baby comes out. This was actually fun,” she said. “I really liked it.”

Standing in the medical center’s auditorium, preparing for the next session, Skylah said that being a part of Awesome Ambitions has allowed her and her peers to explore careers they’re interested in.

“Awesome Ambitions is supportive of our career choices, which is why they have us going on field trips to learn about what we would want to do in the future,” she said.

Gender and cultural representation

A short while later, Kairos Im, 15, a sophomore wearing a blue and white tracksuit accentuated with a blue bow in her hair, smiled as Skylah placed a hospital gown over her, practicing as a therapist.

As a member of the organization for two years, Kairos sees its value in gender and cultural representation. She recalled taking a field trip to Arrowhead Stadium where sports reporters who were women of color discussed the hardships of working in a male-dominated field.

“They were like, ‘yeah, it can be challenging, but here’s how we got through it.’ It was just nice to see them as an example and how they succeeded,” Kairos said.

Ingrid Hubbard, chapter chair for the HCA Midwest Health Black Colleague Network, created the event with that purpose in mind. Hubbard, a Kansas City native, believes that workshops like these are important for girls to see a mirror of themselves in the healthcare field.

“A lot of times you don’t see faces that are similar. Knowing that they can do this because others have done it, shows there’s no limit to where they can go,” Hubbard said.

Importance of mental health

While providing exposure to careers is important to Awesome Ambitions’ leaders, mental health issues that confront teenage girls are not overlooked.

In fact that is an area the organization is addressing amid rising concerns nationally.

A CDC report in February found that in 2021 almost 60% of female students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year and that nearly 25% made a suicide plan.

Research further showed that reported suicide attempts increased nearly 70 percent among Black youth.

Andrea Newton, executive program director of Awesome Ambitions believes in raising awareness about mental health and said that a week earlier the program held a session on mental health with a crisis intervention team in which the girls were educated on the signs of suicide and depression.

For Jordan McGee, 15, Awesome Ambitions is a safe haven where she feels those who run the program genuinely care.

“They’re good with making sure we’re safe,” Jordan said. “They told us about teen outreach programs. And if you don’t feel safe, there are programs where you can go to an apartment and go to school.”

Over time, some of the girls who participate in Awesome Ambitions apparently develop mentoring relationships with the women in the organization. Indeed, Jordan says she sometimes receives calls and texts from founder Cynthia Newsome simply to see how she’s doing.

“Mrs. Cynthia reaches out and connects with me more than on an Awesome Ambitions basis,” Jordan said. “She asks how I’m doing and if I want to go to different events.”

For other young women like Kairos, the impact of Awesome Ambitions is more than about promoting career readiness, but an opportunity to learn from women on how to navigate the world.

“They give advice on how to be confident in yourself and give tools for problem solving. The program prepares us for life in all aspects,” Kairos said.

This story was originally published October 22, 2023 at 5:17 AM.