As part of the Horizons 32K Strategic Plan for Opportunity Youth, UNITE-LA and regional partners are working to strengthen health care career pathways and expand access to paid work-based learning opportunities for young people across Los Angeles County. Through the Opportunity Youth Systems Change Demonstration Project, partners have spent the past year examining where health care pathways break down and identifying strategies to create more connected, equitable routes into training and employment. Findings from this work are helping inform both regional practice and state-level conversations about how to better support opportunity youth.

On May 15, UNITE-LA convened partners for the Opportunity Youth Systems Change Demonstration Project Exhibition, marking an important milestone in this shared effort. In partnership with WestEd, the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, the CA Labor and Workforce Development Agency and regional training providers including Goodwill Southern California, EMS Corps and UNITE-LA’s My Pathway to Health program, the project brought together cross-sector teams to better understand how health care career pathways function in practice for opportunity youth. Over the past 10 months, partners worked to identify where and why pathways break down, particularly for young people navigating complex systems with limited access to coordinated support.

A clear takeaway emerged: many of the barriers opportunity youth face are not rooted in individual readiness, but in how systems are designed. Disconnected timelines between education and workforce programs, limited navigation support, upfront financial barriers and inconsistent communication can make it difficult for young people to enroll, persist and complete training programs, even when strong opportunities exist.

At the same time, the project fostered greater alignment among partners. Participants developed a shared understanding of system challenges and began identifying more coordinated, youth-centered solutions. Insights from the project are now helping shape policy, funding and system design discussions aimed at improving outcomes for opportunity youth.

Looking ahead, partners will build on this momentum by strengthening cross-sector coordination, piloting more integrated navigation strategies and addressing barriers earlier in the pathway. Together, these efforts represent a shift from learning to action, advancing more connected and equitable pathways into health care careers and long-term economic opportunity for young people across Los Angeles.

For more information, please reach out to Amber Chatman, Director of Workforce Systems and Policy at [email protected].