Oklahoma Program Helps Native Americans Develop Their Careers

Native Americans across the country can look forward to brighter futures, thanks to an award-winning program that uses ACT’s KeyTrain^®, Career Ready 101, and WorkKeys^®.

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) Career Development Program is helping tribal members obtain the education, skills, and certifications they need to start new careers or to advance in their current jobs. The program is open to Choctaw tribal members throughout the United States, though most clients live in Oklahoma.

Jeanne Smith, career counselor for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Career Development Program, presents Stanley Self with a Career Readiness Certificate. Self is employed with a local electric cooperative.

The CNO started the career development program five years ago to help tribal members become self-sustaining. One in three Native Americans in Oklahoma lives below the poverty line, compared to one in six people in the rest of the US population. The average per capita income among Native Americans is half that of the general population.

Oklahoma has the country’s highest population of Native Americans, and they are the largest minority group in the state. The Choctaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American tribe located in southeast Oklahoma, with the CNO’s headquarters in Durant. There are about 200,000 Choctaws nationwide.

“The Career Development Program evolved out of Chief Gregory Pyle’s vision of bringing the Choctaw people out of poverty. He believed that his vision could become reality through quality education and career and technology training that would lead to self-sustaining employment for the Choctaw people,” said Rhonda Mize, academic and employment services coordinator for the CNO Career Development Program.

The Career Development staff helps approximately 3,000 clients annually, providing services that include career guidance, employment strategies, skills development, and assessment testing. To participate, they must be pursuing a program of study that leads to an industry-recognized license or certification. The most popular career fields are nursing/health care, transportation, and education. Most clients are adults who are unemployed or underemployed or want to change careers.

Once accepted, clients speak with career counselors about their goals and develop a career plan. They are set up with accounts for participation in KeyTrain, an interactive training system for the career readiness skills defined by WorkKeys.

Stacy Hallmark (right), an academic and employment services specialist for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Career Development Program, helps a client set up a KeyTrain account.

They take KeyTrain pretests in the three core WorkKeys areas: Applied Mathematics, Locating Information, and Reading for Information. They must earn scores of level 5 or above to be referred for WorkKeys testing. Clients are encouraged to utilize the KeyTrain and Career Ready 101 skill-building lessons to work toward the levels required for their specific career fields, based on the WorkKeys Occupational Profiles Database, and are provided with academic support as needed.

“When we compare their pretest scores to the scores in the database for their profession, clients see the relevance of preparing for the WorkKeys assessments and doing the best they can. They are more eager to do the work to earn those scores,” said Mize.

They take the three WorkKeys assessments at either the CNO Career Development Program office or an Oklahoma Career and Technology Education System facility. Out-of-state clients take the assessments at an ACT Center^® site. Those who earn qualifying scores can receive Oklahoma Career Readiness Certificates (CRCs) at one of four levels: platinum, gold, silver, or bronze. Most CNO clients earn silver certificates.

Career counselors keep in touch with clients throughout their education or training program to ensure they are making progress. As clients approach graduation, the CNO academic and employment services team helps them with their job searches. Clients obtain positions with a variety of private employers and also with the CNO, and some continue their education.

“We do everything we can to make sure our clients are employable and competitive in the job market. WorkKeys and the CRC are two of several components we use,” said Mize.

She attributes much of the program’s success to the extensive use of KeyTrain.

“Over the past two years, we have consistently seen how effective our in-depth use of KeyTrain is in preparing people to take the WorkKeys assessments and earn career readiness certificates. We award twice the number of gold certificates as we do bronze, and that’s because we prepare people well for the assessments.