Teens Learn Job and Life Skills at Hospital

For a few minutes this week, Larry Bray was a teenage father. He was 15, jobless, slouching before an audience of his peers as he described his limited prospects. Then he straightened up, laughed and returned to his seat in the crowd.

Bray’s temporary fatherhood was part of a role-playing exercise at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills. Bray, who is really 18, is a participant in Kaiser’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which placed 58 teenagers in summer jobs at its medical centers in Woodland Hills and Panorama City.

This week, the teenagers gathered to watch a performance produced by Kaiser to educate young people about the importance of communication, self-esteem and responsibility. Two actors, Harvy Blanks and Liza Del Mundo, portrayed a middle-aged father and a teenage girl, strangers who are thrown together by a mysterious, otherworldly being to work out their individual problems.

The performance, called “Intersections,” touched on issues that often resonate with young audiences, including pregnancy, drugs and alcohol, violence and dealing with parents. After the show, the actors initiated role-playing scenarios with audience members.

Kaiser has sponsored a summer youth program for 30 years, said Lisa Kort, a Kaiser public affairs representative. The teenagers spend most of their time working at their assigned jobs, but they occasionally meet to hear a speaker or watch a performance, Kort said. This year, 140 students applied for the six-week program.

“We do everything the nurses do but we don’t give shots,” said Charles Fuqua, 16, who works in the pediatric department. “It’s been pretty fun,” he said. “I got to see a circumcision.”

Another student, Shena Borad, works in Kaiser’s in-patient pharmacy, delivering medicine to the various clinics throughout the medical center. Borad said she wants to be a pediatrician, and her stint at Kaiser may extend into the fall, when she will be a senior at El Camino High School in Woodland Hills.

“They offered me a job,” she said. “I’m going to work Saturdays.”