Connecting Rural Youth to Healthcare Careers

McGrath School “Choose Your Career Adventure” May 5, 2026

At Southcentral Foundation, caring for communities means investing in their future. Along with providing health and related services, SCF is assisting rural youth discover pathways to healthcare careers and preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals.

In rural Alaska, distance can create barriers to accessing not only care, but opportunity. For many young people, what they see around them shapes what they believe is possible. Research on career aspirations and exposure shows children begin forming ideas about their future at an early age, and many have narrowed their sense of which careers they might pursue by age 7.

Without early exposure to a wide range of professions and role models, those possibilities can quietly shrink.[1] The Organizations for Economic Co-operation and Development has studied this in depth internationally and provides diagnostics and a checklist for effective career guidance, urging education systems to:

Integrate career guidance into school curricula from early adolescence.
Provide targeted support for disadvantaged students.
Foster connections between schools, employers, and community organizations.
Encourage reflective and forward-looking thinking about future careers.

In support of increasing exposure to career opportunities, Matt Shelborne, McGrath School principal and teacher partnered with SCF’s School-Based Health Center team to create an opportunity for students to learn about healthcare careers.

Together, they adapted a model similar to Inspiring the Future. A key element was making participation both efficient and engaging.

The School-Based Health Center team, in partnership with Organizational Development, designed and hosted a Virtual Youth Job and Health Fair centered on connection, accessibility, and shared learning. The teams brought together representatives from SCF-based training programs to engage with youth and share information about career and educational opportunities. To encourage participation, the team provided incentives and gifts and invited teens ages 13–18 to attend.

More than 60 students from McGrath, Nikolai, Newhalen, Igiugig, and Kokhanok attended the kick off event in person or virtually. For comparison, in-person SCF career fairs in the regional hub Anchorage typically attract around 120 participants. Reaching more than half that number across remote villages through a single career fair shows the communities’ interest in these opportunities brought directly to them. It also demonstrates that it is possible to do so in a cost-efficient manner.

Throughout the event, quizzes, and games with prizes kept students engaged. The event was designed not just to inform, but to connect. Students participated in a Choose Your Career Adventure, selecting areas of interest and joining small-group sessions led by SCF healthcare professionals and community members.

After the event, the McGrath principal asked students for feedback. Students said they appreciated the opportunity to connect with SCF employees and felt they learned more through those conversations than from YouTube.

Within SCF’s workforce, this story is similar. Many employees serving in rural clinics describe an early experience meeting a healthcare worker, hearing a story, or being encouraged by a mentor who helped them see a path they had not previously imagined.

“I think the best part of my job is being able to take charge of community bonding, getting the community together in different ways, and just giving resources to my community that I didn’t see when I was young,” shared SCF McGrath Clinic Manager Daedre Turner. “Just having so much freedom and so much support through SCF to bring the community together in an environment or a society that is so separated. I think in the villages we really need each other, and so being able to just create a space where people can get together is the best part of my job.”

By creating opportunities for rural students to explore healthcare careers, SCF is not only supporting individual growth, but strengthening communities and building a future workforce that understands and reflects the people it serves.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50042459