Case+Study+-+RHAP+Program


 * What is the RAHP program? **

RAHP stands for Ridgewood Academy for Health Professions and it’s a three-year program made for students who have the interest of pursuing a career within medical or health professions. The academy is about six years old and accepts 40-45 sophomore students every year. The goal of the program is to expose the real world within medical and health professions to show how many different careers there is in those areas.

The students will, under their years in the RAHP-program experience field trips, career explorations, mentorships, internships and much more. In their second year they get to see the practical realities of work in the health related field. We asked the question “What do you think makes this program different? One student answered; “Our abilities and our opportunities to go see the hospital and we’ve seen areas of the hospital that other doctors haven’t even seen areas of, so just this opportunity that other people outside of this program don’t have.” (2-Rahp2-I – 2:04s)

In their senior year they have to do some kind of project. We interviewed three students about their projects and one of the students had “Smoking” as topic. So what she has been doing is that she organized a support group for people who want to quit smoking. She organized meetings once a week where her mentor led the group most times but in one class this student led the discussion group about stress management and different techniques to help you quit smoking. She describes the project as a “a really life changing experience because it was interesting to see these people and what they’re going through trying to quit smoking” (2 Rahp2-I – 4:13s)

This project is possible through cooperation between Ridgewood High School, Valley Hospital and Bergen Community College.

This is one step into the future of learning and something that could be applied to almost any school. Vocational learning mixed with academic learning is an effective way to prepare the students for further studies after school and also to explore careers in early age so that the might get a better perception of what they want to do in life. We interviewed a student who said this; “I wasn’t sure if I would be interested in the medical field or not and I just thought that it sounded like an interesting course, and after interning at the hospital I really think that I want to pursue a career in the medical field” (2-Rahp-2-I – 1:10s)

Many thanks to Ms Fern and her class!